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  Italic text displayed as: _italic_




  HELL ON ICE

  THE SAGA OF THE “JEANNETTE”




[Illustration: Decoration]




_Books by_

COMMANDER ELLSBERG


  ON THE BOTTOM
  PIGBOATS
  S-54

  THIRTY FATHOMS DEEP
  OCEAN GOLD
  SPANISH INGOTS

[Illustration: Decoration]




[Illustration: Decoration]

  HELL ON ICE

  THE SAGA OF THE “JEANNETTE”

  _by_
  COMMANDER
  EDWARD ELLSBERG

  [Illustration: Decoration]

  DODD, MEAD & COMPANY
  NEW YORK        1938

[Illustration: Decoration]




  COPYRIGHT, 1938,
  BY EDWARD ELLSBERG
  AND
  LUCY BUCK ELLSBERG

  All rights reserved—no part of this book may be
  reproduced in any form without permission in
  writing from the publisher.


  PRINTED IN THE U. S. A.




  TO

  EMMA WOTTON DE LONG

  STILL WAITING AFTER SIXTY YEARS TO
  REJOIN THE MAN WHO SAILED AWAY
  IN COMMAND OF THE “JEANNETTE”

  “... a truer, nobler, trustier heart,
  More loving or more loyal, never beat
  Within a human breast.”




PREFACE


On the summit of a grassy hill in Maryland looking across an arm of the
Severn River toward the spreading lawns and the gray buildings of the
Naval Academy stands a stone cross frosted with marble icicles topping
an oddly shaped granite cairn.

In the summer of 1910, a boy of eighteen fresh from the Colorado
Rockies, I stood, a new midshipman in awkward sailor whites, before
that monument and read the inscription to Lieutenant Commander G. W. De
Long and the officers and men who perished with him in the _Jeannette_
Expedition of 1879 in search of the North Pole. Casually I noted that
no one was buried beneath that cross, and since I had never heard
before either of De Long or of the _Jeannette_, I wandered off to study
the monuments to naval heroes whose deeds shone out in the histories
I had read—the officers who in the wars with Tripoli had humbled the
Barbary pirates; those who in the Civil War had braved Confederate
forts and ironclad rams to save the Union; and most of all to stand
before the tomb of John Paul Jones, the father of our Navy and a
valiant seaman, fit companion to the great commanders of all ages.

Over the next twenty years I heard again occasionally of De Long in
connection with the successful expeditions to the North and to the
South Poles, finally reached by Peary and by Amundsen and those who
followed in their footsteps. But except as a dismal early failure, De
Long’s expedition seemed to have no significance, until some seven
years ago a brief article by a friend of mine, Commander Louis J.
Gulliver, appeared in the Naval Institute summarizing so splendidly
the history of the _Jeannette_ that immediately that old stone cross in
Annapolis for me took on a new importance and I began to study what had
happened. Reading what I could get my hands on concerning it, I soon
enough saw that De Long’s early failure was a more brilliant chapter in
human struggle and achievement than the later successes of Peary and of
Amundsen.

But in my early search, based mainly on De Long’s journals as published
nearly sixty years ago, much of what had happened eluded me; first,
because De Long himself, fighting for the lives of his men in the
Arctic, never had opportunity to set down in his journal what was going
on (the most vivid day of his life is covered by two brief lines);
and second, because the published version of his journal was much
expurgated by those who edited it to create the impression that the
expedition was a happy family of scientists unitedly battling the ice,
whereas the truth was considerably otherwise as I soon learned.

Fortunately there came into my hands the old record of the Naval
Court of Inquiry into the disaster, before which court the survivors
testified, from which it appeared that De Long’s struggles with his
men tried his soul even as much as his struggles with the ice; and on
top of that discovery, with the aid of Congressman Celler of New York,
I got from the records of Congress the transcript of a Congressional
Investigation lasting two solid months, a volume of nearly eleven
hundred closely printed pages, from which the flesh to clothe the
skeleton of De Long’s journal immediately appeared. For there, fiercely
fought over by the inquisitors (Congressional investigations apparently
being no different over half a century ago from what they are today)
were the stories of every survivor, whether officer or man, dragged
out of him by opposing counsel, insistent even that the exact words
of every controversy, profane as they might be, go down in the record
to tell what really happened in three years in the ice pack. And there
also, never otherwise published, were all the suppressed reports
relating to the expedition, the expurgated portions of De Long’s
journal, and the unpublished journals of Ambler and of Collins.

From the records of these two inquiries, Naval and Congressional,
backed up by what had been published—the journal of De Long appearing
as “The Voyage of the _Jeannette_”; “In the Lena Delta,” by G. W.
Melville, chief engineer of the expedition; and “The Narrative of
the _Jeannette_,” by J. W. Danenhower, navigator—stood forth an
extraordinary human story. Over this material I worked three years.

How best to tell that story was a puzzle. De Long and the _Jeannette_
Expedition had already most successfully been embalmed and buried by
loving hands in the sketchy but conventional historical treatments of
the published volumes mentioned above. To repeat that method was a
waste of time. It then occurred to me that since I had once narrated
in the first person in “On the Bottom” the battle of another group of
seamen (of whom I was one) with the ocean for the sunken submarine
S-51, I might here best give this story life and reality by relating it
in fictional form as the personal narrative of one of the members of
the expedition.

But who should that man be?

It was of course obvious that he must be chosen from the group of
survivors. That narrowed the field to three officers and eight seamen.
Now as between officers and seamen, it was evident that the officers
were in a far better position to observe and to know what was happening
than the seamen, so the choice was limited to the three surviving
officers. For reasons that will afterwards be clear, among these
three there could hardly be any question—Melville patently was best.
And aside from the fact that Melville was a leading light in the
expedition and next to De Long himself the man who actually bore the
brunt of Arctic fury, he was an engineer, and since I am also, I could
most easily identify myself with him and with his point of view.

So here as it might have been told about thirty years ago by Admiral
George Wallace Melville, retired Engineer-in-Chief of the Navy, blunt,
loyal, and lovable, a man whose versatility in four widely dissimilar
fields of human endeavor gave him at his death in 1912 good claim
to being considered one of America’s geniuses, is the Saga of the
_Jeannette_.

  EDWARD ELLSBERG.




  HELL ON ICE

  THE SAGA OF THE “JEANNETTE”




CHAPTER I


This year, 1909, deserves remembrance for one thing at least aside
from the retirement into private life of President Roosevelt. A few
weeks ago through the Virginia Capes steamed into Hampton Roads
our battlefleet, sixteen salt-crusted veterans of an unprecedented
adventure—the circumnavigation of the globe by an entire fleet. There
they were, back from the distant seas, guns roaring in salute to our
president, flags flying everywhere, whistles from craft of all kinds
shrieking them a welcome home.

Roosevelt, unafraid as always, had sent them out in the teeth of
unnumbered critics who foresaw our battleships with broken-down
machinery rusting in every foreign port from Valparaiso to Gibraltar,
but instead with engines smoothly turning, the blunt noses of those
sixteen battleships plowed back sturdily into Hampton Roads.

I had never had any fears. I had watched the machinery of every one
of those sixteen ships grow on the drafting tables of the Bureau of
Steam Engineering—pistons, cranks, connecting rods, boilers, pumps,
condensers. My life went into the design of those engines and boilers
on every ship, and from the flagship _Connecticut_ proudly leading
the long line down to the distant battleship bringing up the rear of
the column, there wasn’t a boiler, there wasn’t a steam cylinder,
that wasn’t part of George Wallace Melville. Under my eyes, under my
guidance, they had grown from ideas on the drawing board to the roaring
kettles and the throbbing engines before which panting coalheavers and
sweating oilers toiled below to drive those beautiful white hulls round
the world and safely home to Hampton Roads.

But now I can foresee the day of those ships is done, and I think I
have discernment enough left to see that mine is also. Here in this
year 1909, hardly six years since my retirement as Engineer-in-Chief of
the Navy, I look upon the vast fleet the machinery of which I designed,
and I see its passing. Last year the _Lusitania_, turbine-driven,
speeding across the Atlantic to a new record, sounded the knell of
the huge reciprocating engines I designed for all those battleships.
And practically completed, waiting to join her older sisters, was
the _Delaware_, our newest ship, a “dreadnought” so they call her
now, a huge ship of 20,000 tons, but—fired by oil! Her oil fires
spell the doom of the romance of the fireroom—the stokers, the grimy
coalpassers, the slice bar—that pandemonium, that man-made inferno,
with forced-draft fans roaring, with the clang of coal buckets
trolleying from bunker to fireroom floor, with the glare of the flames
on sweating torsos as the furnace doors swing back and brawny arms
heave in the coal! They’ll all go soon, flying connecting rods and
straining coalheavers, driven out by the prosaic turbine and the even
more prosaic oil burner.

But so it goes. We marine engineers dream, design, and build, to
send forth on the oceans the most beautiful creations man turns out
anywhere on land or sea—but soon our ships fade from existence like
a mist before the sun. For sixteen years I was Engineer-in-Chief for
the Navy, and the machinery of that battlefleet the nation watched so
proudly steaming home through the Capes was my creation, but I’ve seen
enough in the fifty years since I entered the Navy when the Civil War
broke out to doubt that ten years more will find a single ship of that
armada still in active service. Turbines, oil burning boilers, bigger
guns, heavier armor—they are crowding in fast now, and soon my ships
will go to the wreckers to make way in the fleet for the bigger and
faster vessels sliding down the building ways in the wake of the huge
_Delaware_.

Odd how one’s perspective changes with the years! As a young engineer,
I would have believed with those cheering thousands last month in
Hampton Roads that to have had a guiding hand in creating that fleet
would be the high light in my life—but now I know better. In the end it
is how men lived and died, not the material things they constructed,
that the world is most likely to remember. That is why in my mind
a stone cross in Annapolis Cemetery looms larger and larger as the
years drift by. Years ago, hewn from a driftwood spar, I set up the
original of that cross in the frozen Lena Delta to stand guard over
the bodies of my shipmates; that stone replica in Annapolis, silent
marker of their memory, will loom up in our history long after there
has completely vanished from the seas every trace of the ships and the
machinery which the world now links with the name of Melville.

We were seeking the North Pole back in 1879 when I came to set up that
cross. Today, exactly thirty years later, they’re still seeking it. At
this very moment, unheard from for months, Peary is working north from
Greenland. I wish him luck; he’s following a more promising route than
that one through Behring Sea which we in the _Jeannette_ found led only
to disaster.

It’s strange. The roar of guns in battle, machinery, boilers, hot
engine rooms and flaming firerooms, have made up most of my life since
that day in 1861 when as a young engineer I entered the Navy to go
through the Civil War, but now at sixty-eight, what sticks most in my
mind is still that cruise of long ago when for two years our boiler
fires were either banked or out, our engine never made a revolution,
engineering went by the board, and with only the Aurora Borealis
overhead to witness the struggle, with me as with all hands on the
_Jeannette_ existence settled into a grim question of ice versus ship,
and God help us if the ship lost!

We were an odd company there in the _Jeannette’s_ wardroom, five naval
officers and three civilians, drawn together seeking that chimera, a
passage through Behring Sea to the Pole. De Long, our captain, was
responsible mainly for our being there—George Washington De Long—a
man as big as his namesake, scholarly in appearance, to which a high
forehead, a drooping mustache, and his glasses all contributed, but
in spite of that a self-willed man, decisive, resolute, eager to be
the first to end the centuries old search for what lay at the Pole.
Behind De Long in this affair was James Gordon Bennett, owner of the
_New York Herald_, and an outstanding figure in American journalism.
Shortly before, Bennett had won world-wide notice and acclaim for the
_Herald_ by sending Stanley on the seemingly hopeless task of finding
Livingstone in the wilds of unknown Africa and then topped off that
success by backing Stanley’s amazing explorations on the Congo and the
headwaters of the Nile. Bennett, seeking now fresh worlds to conquer in
the interests of journalism, was easily persuaded by De Long to turn
his attention and his money from conquered equatorial Africa to the
undiscovered Pole. It was Bennett who purchased the _Jeannette_ and
put up the cash to fit her out. But once the ship was bought, Bennett
hardly figured in the actual expedition. That was De Long’s show from
beginning to end. And what an end!

I joined the _Jeannette_ as engineer officer in San Francisco in
April, 1879. An uninviting wreck she looked to me then alongside the
dock at the Mare Island Navy Yard, torn apart by the navy yard workmen
for the strengthening of her hull and for the installation of new
boilers. A checkered history the _Jeannette_ had had before I ever
saw her—originally as the _Pandora_ of the Royal Navy; then, with
guns removed, in the hands of Sir Allen Young, as a private yacht in
which her owner made two cruises to high latitudes in the Arctic seas.
Finally, she was bought in England from Young by Bennett on De Long’s
recommendation as the most suitable vessel available for the projected
polar voyage.

The most suitable she may have been—over that point experts have
wrangled through the years since. So far as I am concerned, the
_Jeannette_ was satisfactory. But the naval constructors and engineers
at Mare Island, California, when De Long after a passage round the Horn
in her sailed his purchase into the Navy Yard, made no bones about
saying they thought De Long had been badly fooled and the ship would
scarcely do. But what they thought of the _Jeannette_ was neither here
nor there. Bennett had bought her, De Long was satisfied with her. The
criticisms of the naval experts at Mare Island, three thousand miles
away, got little attention in Washington, where with the power of the
_New York Herald_ behind him and De Long’s enthusiasm to batter down
all opposition, naval or otherwise, Bennett got a bill through Congress
making the _Jeannette_ a naval vessel, and (while Bennett was still to
stand all the expenses of the expedition) directing the Navy to furnish
the personnel and carry the project through as a naval undertaking.

So when I joined the ship there in San Francisco, I found her torn
to pieces, with Lieutenant Chipp, who was to be executive officer,
and Master Danenhower, slated to go as navigator, already on the spot
following up the alterations as representatives of De Long. Danenhower,
soon promoted to lieutenant, had joined in Havre and rounded the Horn
with her. Lieutenant Chipp had shortly before arrived from China to
take the post as executive officer. And during the weeks which followed
my own arrival, came the others to fill out the officers’ mess—Surgeon
Ambler; Mr. Collins, meteorologist; Mr. Newcomb, naturalist; and Mr.
Dunbar, ice-pilot. A queer collection we were, as I well learned
months before De Long’s dying fingers scrawled the last entry in the
_Jeannette’s_ log, and Fate played queer tricks with us.




CHAPTER II


Naturally, as her engineer officer, I scanned with deep interest every
detail of the vessel to which I was to trust my life in the Arctic,
and I may say that torn wide open as she lay when I first saw her, I
had an excellent opportunity to get intimately acquainted with the
_Jeannette’s_ scantlings and with her machinery.

Even for that day, 1879, the _Jeannette_ was a small ship, hardly
420 tons in displacement. She was only 142 feet long, 25 feet in the
beam, and drew but 13 feet of water when fully loaded. She was a
three-master, barque rigged, able in a fair breeze under full sail to
make six knots, which, not to hold anything back, was almost two knots
better than I was ever able to get her to do with her engines against
even an ordinary sea.

Obviously, not having been built for Arctic service, the _Jeannette’s_
hull required strengthening to withstand the ice, and when I first saw
her, from stem to stern the ship was a mad-house, with the shipwrights
busily tearing her apart as a preliminary to reenforcing her hull and
otherwise modifying her for service in the north. Amidships was a huge
hole in her deck through which her original boilers, condemned by a
survey, had been lifted out to be junked. To make more room for coal
(for we were outfitting for a three year cruise) the old boilers were
being replaced by two smaller ones of a more efficient and compact
design, by which device our coal stowage was increased in capacity
nearly fifty per cent—an achievement of no mean value to a ship which,
once we left Alaska, would have no opportunity to refuel on her voyage.

But this change in the fireroom, radical as it was, was trifling
in comparison with the additions being made to the hull itself. To
strengthen her for ramming into the ice-fields and to withstand the
ice, the bow below the berth deck for a distance of ten feet abaft the
stern was filled in solid with Oregon pine timbers, well bolted through
and through. Outside in this vicinity, her stern was sheathed with
wrought iron, and from the stern back to the forechains, row on row
laid on horizontally, a series of iron straps was bolted to the outer
planking to shield it from ice damage.

In way of the boilers and engines, completely covering her side
framing, the inside of the ship was sheathed fore and aft with Oregon
pine planks six inches thick, extending from the boiler bed timbers up
the side to the lower deck shelf; and outside the ship from just above
the water line to well below the turn of the bilge, a doubling of five
inches of American elm had been added, so that the total thickness of
the _Jeannette’s_ side when we finally sailed was over nineteen inches,
a thickness which put her in the class with _Old Ironsides_ when it
came to resisting local penetration.

But the work did not stop there. The sides might be invulnerable
locally but still collapse as a whole like a nut in a nutcracker when
gripped between two ice floes. To resist any such contingency, in
addition to the two original athwartship bulkheads which supported the
sides laterally, an athwartship truss of massive wood beams, 12 by 14
inches in section, braced diagonally against the bilges and the lower
side of the main deck, was installed just forward of the new boilers
to bolster the sides amidships; while just abaft these boilers there
was refitted an old iron truss which the ship had previously carried
somewhat further forward. The result of these additions was that so
far as human ingenuity could provide, the _Jeannette_ was prepared to
resist both penetration and crushing in the ice. Certainly no steamer
before her time had set out better braced to withstand the Arctic
ice-fields.

My major interest, of course, was with the main machinery. On the
_Jeannette_, this consisted of two back-acting engines, each with
a thirty-two inch diameter cylinder and an eighteen inch stroke,
developing a total of 200 horsepower at about 60 revolutions, which on
our trials in the smooth waters of San Francisco Bay, gave the ship a
speed of about five knots. Our shaft led aft through the sternpost to a
two-bladed propeller, nine feet in diameter, so arranged under a well
in the stern that the propeller could be unshipped and hoisted aboard
whenever desired, which clearly enough was a valuable feature on a
vessel subjected to ice dangers.

During our fitting-out period all this machinery was carefully
overhauled, four extra blades for our propeller were provided; and at
my request, two new slide valves for the main engines were fitted, in
order to change the cutoff and give the engines a greater expansion,
which by increasing the economy of steam consumption would conserve to
the utmost our precious coal.

Aside from the above there were many minor items—the addition of
another auxiliary pump (a No. 4 Sewell and Cameron); the installation
of a complete distillation plant to provide us with fresh water; and
the fitting on deck of a hoisting and warping winch made of a pair of
steam-launch engines rigged out with the necessary gearing and drums
for handling lines.

Not in my department, but of interest to all hands who were going to
live aboard, were the changes made to the ship itself to increase its
habitability in the north. Material for a portable deck house to cover
our main deck over the forecastle was furnished us, and all exposed
iron work throughout the vessel was felted over. An entrance porch
was built over the forward end of the poop, leading to the officers’
quarters, and given to us in a knocked-down state, while the insides
of both the forecastle and the wardroom were thickly covered with felt
for insulation.

The thousand and one details in fitting out that we had to go into, I
will pass over. De Long was in Washington, smoothing out difficulties,
financial and otherwise, with the Navy Department, and obtaining all
information on previous polar expeditions, both foreign and domestic,
on which he could possibly lay a hand. Consequently all through the
spring, on Chipp, on Danenhower, and on myself at Mare Island fell
the task of following up the repairs and alterations; of getting the
most we could done to the ship at the least expense; and as every
naval officer who has ever taken his ship through an overhaul period
well knows, of battling through the daily squabbles between ship’s
officers and navy yard personnel as to who knew better what ought to
be done and how best to do it. We did our utmost to tread on no one’s
toes, but from the beginning the officers at the Navy Yard regarded
the _Jeannette_ herself as unsuitable for a serious polar voyage, and
this hardly led to complete harmony between them and us; an unfortunate
situation which I think may have also been aggravated somewhat by
doubts on their part about what the _Jeannette_ Expedition was really
intended for—a newspaper stunt for the glorification of James Gordon
Bennett, or a bona fide attempt to add to the scientific knowledge of
the world? But whatever their feelings, they did a thorough job on the
ship, even though the cost, about $50,000, must have been something of
a shock to Mr. Bennett, who, after paying for the repairs previously
made to the _Jeannette_ in England, probably felt the vessel ready to
proceed to the Pole with only a perfunctory stop at Mare Island to
take aboard stores and crew. And I know, especially in the beginning
of this fitting-out period, that De Long himself was on tenter-hooks
for fear that the cost of all these unexpected repairs and replacements
would cause Bennett to abandon the enterprise. He was constantly in
his letters from Washington cautioning us to use our ingenuity and our
diplomacy with the Yard’s officers to affect every practicable economy,
and whenever possible within the terms of the Act of Congress taking
over the _Jeannette_, to see that costs, especially for materials
furnished, were absorbed by the Navy itself and not lodged against the
expedition.

So we struggled along through April, May, and June, with my dealings
on machinery mainly with Chief Engineer Farmer of the Navy Yard, while
Chipp worked with Naval Constructor Much who handled all the hull work
at Mare Island, and Danenhower confined himself to disbursing the funds
and watching the accounts. The two new boilers (originally intended for
the U.S.S. _Mohican_ but diverted to us to expedite completion) were
finally dropped into our hold, the beams and decking replaced, and the
_Jeannette_, though life aboard was still a nightmare as the vessel
rang from end to end under the blows of shipwrights’ mauls and caulking
hammers, once more began to look something like a ship instead of a
stranded derelict.




CHAPTER III


Meanwhile our crew was being assembled, an unusual group naturally
enough in view of the unusual nature of our projected voyage.

Of Lieutenant De Long, captain of the _Jeannette_, originator of
the enterprise, and throughout its existence the dominant spirit in
it, I have already spoken. The choice of the others who made up the
expedition, especially of those ranked as officers, rested with him.
Good, bad, or indifferent, they were either selected by him or met his
approval; no one else was to blame if, before our adventure ended, of
some he wrote in the highest terms while others were at various times
under arrest by his orders, and with one at least he was engaged in a
bitter feud that lasted to the death of both.

Second in command was Lieutenant Charles W. Chipp, whom I have already
briefly noted in connection with the repairs. He came all the way
from the China Station to join the ship as executive officer. Chipp,
of moderate height, who in appearance always reminded me of General
Grant due both to his beard and his eyes, was a calm, earnest, reticent
sort of person, serious, rarely given to smiles, and a first class
officer. He was an old shipmate of De Long’s in the U.S.S. _Juniata_,
and together they had had some previous Arctic experience when in 1873
their ship was sent north to the relief of the lost _Polaris_. On this
mission, when the _Juniata_, not daring because of ice conditions to
venture farther north, was stopped at Upernavik, Greenland, both De
Long and Chipp cruised together for nearly two weeks in a small steam
launch several hundred miles farther to the northward, searching among
the bergs of Baffin Bay for the _Polaris’_ crew. To their great
disappointment they failed to find them, a circumstance not however
their fault, since unknown to the searchers, the _Polaris_ survivors
had already been rescued by a Scotch whaler and taken to Great Britain.
On this hazardous voyage, covering over 700 miles in a 33 foot steam
launch, amidst the bergs and gales of Baffin Bay, Chipp as De Long’s
second got his baptism of ice, and in all the intervening years from
that adventure, even from the distant Orient, he kept in close touch
with De Long, eager if his shipmate’s dreams of a polar expedition
of his own ever materialized, to take part. When early in 1878, the
_Pandora_ was finally purchased in England, Chipp was in China,
attached to the U.S.S. _Ashuelot_. Upon learning of this concrete
evidence of progress toward the Pole, he tried strenuously to secure
his immediate detachment and join the renamed _Pandora_ in England
for the trip round the Horn, but in this he was unsuccessful, and it
was not until late April, 1879, that by way of the Pacific he finally
arrived from Foo Chow to join us in San Francisco.

The third and last of the line officers was Master John W. Danenhower,
navigator, who a few weeks after we sailed, in the regular course of
naval seniority, made his number as a lieutenant. Danenhower, the
youngest of the officers aboard, having been out of the Naval Academy
only eight years at the time, was during the summer of 1878 on the
U.S.S. _Vandalia_, convoying ex-President Grant, then at the height of
his popularity, on a triumphal tour of the Mediterranean. Here, off the
coast of Asia Minor, the news of Bennett’s purchase of the _Pandora_
for a polar expedition reached him. Whether prompted by youthful
exuberance or a desire to escape the heat of the tropics, I never knew,
but at any rate, Danenhower promptly got in touch, not with De Long,
but with Bennett, offering his services, and shrewdly enough backing
up his application with an endorsement obtained from the _Vandalia’s_
distinguished passenger, General Grant himself!

For the owner of a Republican newspaper, this was more than sufficient.
Bennett promptly accepted him, subject only to De Long’s approval.
Scheduled shortly to sail from Havre to San Francisco with the
_Jeannette_ and confronted with the imperative need of finding
immediately to help him work the ship some assistant in the place of
the distant Chipp who was still ineffectually struggling in China to
get his detachment, De Long gladly assented to this solution. Between
Bennett, General Grant, and the cables, Navy red tape was rudely cut,
Danenhower’s transfer swiftly arranged, and after a hasty passage by
steamer and train across the Mediterranean and Europe, he arrived from
Smyrna shortly before the _Jeannette_ shoved off from Havre.

Danenhower, hardly thirty when we started, masked his youth (as was not
uncommon in those days) behind an ample growth of sideburns. Unlike his
two seniors in the Line, he had had no previous Arctic experience of
any kind, but he was enthusiastic, impetuous, big in frame, strong and
husky, and from all appearances better able than most of the rest of us
to withstand the rigors of the north.

Concerning myself, then a passed assistant engineer in the Navy with
the rank of lieutenant, little need be said. Of all the regular
officers on the _Jeannette_, I was the oldest both in length of service
and in years, being at the time we set out thirty-eight and having
entered the Navy when the war began in 1861 as a third assistant
engineer. My years in the poorly ventilated and hot engine rooms of
those days had cost me most of my hair, but to compensate for this, I
had the longest and fullest beard aboard the _Jeannette_, which I think
gave me somewhat of a patriarchal appearance to which however my age
hardly entitled me. Oddly enough, my first polar service was coincident
with that of De Long and Chipp, for I was engineer officer of the
U.S.S. _Tigress_, also searching Baffin Bay in 1873 for the _Polaris_
survivors when we fell in with the _Juniata’s_ launch, officered by
De Long and Chipp, on the same mission searching off Cape York. When
the launch had exhausted its small coal supply and returned to the
_Juniata_ we in the _Tigress_ (which was really a purchased whaler and
therefore better suited for the job than a regular naval vessel like
the _Juniata_) continued the task.

My first acquaintance with De Long had come however several years
earlier than this, when in the sixties, we were shipmates on the U.S.S.
_Lancaster_ on the South Atlantic Station, where in spite of the fact
that he was on deck and I in the engine room, we got to know each
other well. It was as a result of this friendship and the interest
in polar research I had myself acquired on the _Tigress_ that at De
Long’s suggestion, I volunteered my services for the _Jeannette_. I had
some difficulty getting the berth, however, for the Bureau of Steam
Engineering, being hard pressed for personnel, was loath to let anyone
in the Bureau itself go.

So far as her operation as a ship went then, these four of us, three
officers of the Line, De Long, Chipp, and Danenhower, and one officer
of the Engineer Corps, myself, made up the commissioned personnel of
the _Jeannette_.

We had with us one more officer of the regular navy. Passed Assistant
Surgeon James M. Ambler, a native of Virginia and a naval surgeon
since 1874. Upon the recommendation of the senior medical officers of
the Navy, Ambler was asked by De Long to take the berth, and gladly
accepted.

I met Ambler for the first time on the _Jeannette_. Quiet, broad
of brow, dignified in manner and bearing, of amazing vitality, he
impressed me from the first both as an excellent shipmate and as a
competent surgeon to whose skill, far from hospitals and resources of
civilization, we might safely trust our health in the Arctic. And
in this belief, the hazards of the months to come proved we were not
mistaken.

These five mentioned, regularly commissioned in the Navy, comprised the
whole of those technically entitled to be considered as officers, but
in the wardroom mess we had three others, Collins, Newcomb, and Dunbar,
who came into that category in spite of the fact that they were shipped
as seamen. The Act of Congress taking over the vessel authorized the
Secretary of the Navy to detail such naval officers as could be spared
and were willing to go, but as for the rest of the crew, it permitted
only the enlistment of others as “seamen” for this “special service.”
To some degree this created a dilemma which from the beginning had
in it the seeds of trouble, for as a scientific expedition, Bennett
desired to send along certain civilians. These gentlemen, who obviously
were not seamen, and who felt themselves entitled to consideration as
officers (in which belief the rest of us willingly enough concurred)
were nevertheless informed by the Navy Department that legally they
could go only as “seamen for special service” or not at all. How
they were to be considered aboard ship and what duties they might
be assigned, would rest with the commanding officer. This fiat of
the Department, a bitter pill for the men concerned to swallow, was
soon ameliorated by De Long’s assurance that those affected were to
be treated as officers, and on this understanding Collins, Newcomb,
and Dunbar were accordingly shipped as “seamen for special service.”
And then and there was laid the basis of a quarrel which long after
those involved were stretched cold in death, mercifully buried by the
snowdrifts on the bleak tundras of the Lena Delta, still raged in all
the unbridled malevolence of slander and innuendo through naval courts
and the halls of Congress, venomously endeavoring to besmirch both the
living and the dead.

Jerome J. Collins, of the staff of the _New York Herald_, was
appointed by Mr. Bennett as meteorologist of the expedition, but was
obviously aboard mainly as a newspaper man. Collins, a big man with a
flowing mustache but no beard, was active, energetic, eager in a news
sense to cover the expedition, often in trouble with the rest of us,
for the usual naval temperament, taught to regard the captain’s word
as law, was wholly missing in _this_ newspaper man’s ideas of the
freedom befitting a reporter. Collins’ appointment as meteorologist
was natural enough for he ran the weather department of the _Herald_,
though scientifically his knowledge of meteorology was superficial. But
he plunged whole-heartedly into the subject, and aided by De Long who
got him access both to the Smithsonian Institution and to the Naval
Observatory, he absorbed all he could on meteorology in the few months
which elapsed while we were fitting out.

Still, shipping as a “seaman” rankled in Collins’ soul; a small thing
to worry over perhaps, but he was overly sensitive and often took
offense when none was meant. Many times since have I wondered whether
Collins, the only one amongst the wardroom mess not born an American,
may not, like many immigrants, have been unduly tender on that account
and therefore imagined subtle insults in the most casual comments of
his shipmates about his birthplace, Ireland.

Our other civilian scientist was Raymond Lee Newcomb of Salem,
Massachusetts, naturalist and taxidermist of the expedition. Newcomb,
serious, slight in build, small as compared to the rest of us, seemed
at first glance ill adapted to stand the gaff of a polar voyage, but
technically he was a good naturalist and that settled his appointment,
in spite of his boyish manner.

Last of all those comprising the wardroom mess was William Dunbar,
ice-pilot, who hailed from New London and had been a whaler all his
life, had commanded whalers in the Behring Sea, and of all those
aboard, had had the longest and the most thorough knowledge of ice,
ice packs, and the polar seas. By far the oldest man aboard, either in
the wardroom or in the forecastle, Dunbar’s grizzled face, gray hairs,
and fund of experience gave his words on all things Arctic an air of
authority none of the rest of us could muster, and on his knowledge and
sagacity as ice-pilot, we rested mainly our hopes of navigating the
_Jeannette_ safely through the ice-fields.

These were the eight that made up the _Jeannette’s_ wardroom mess, each
in his own way looking to the ice-fields and the mysterious regions of
the Pole as the path to knowledge, to adventure, or to fame. Instead,
even after thirty years, my heart still aches when I recall what the
ice did to us and where for most of us that path led.




CHAPTER IV


Throughout May and June we were busy loading stores, coaling ship,
running our trials, cleaning up the odds and ends of our alterations,
and signing on the crew.

De Long in Washington, deluged from all over the country with requests
from young men, old men, cranks, and crackpots of every type, eager to
go along in all sorts of ridiculous capacities, diplomatically solved
his difficulty by rejecting each claim in about the same letter to all:

“I have room in the _Jeannette_ for nobody but her officers and
crew. These must be seamen or people with some claim to scientific
usefulness, but from your letter I fail to learn that you may be
classed with either party.”

And then, having thus disposed of the undesirables, from Washington he
wrote the _Jeannette_, carefully instructing Chipp as to the essential
requirements for the seamen he desired to have signed on:

“Single men, perfect health, considerable strength, perfect temperance,
cheerfulness, ability to read and write English, prime seamen of
course. Norwegians, Swedes, and Danes preferred. Avoid English, Scotch,
and Irish. Refuse point-blank French, Italians, and Spaniards. Pay to
be Navy pay. Absolute and unhesitating obedience to every order, no
matter what it may be.”

De Long’s instructions with respect to nationalities were based mainly
on his assumptions with regard to their supposed abilities to withstand
the rigors of the north, but they seemed to me to a high degree
humorous when I consider that I, of Scotch descent, fell in the class
to be “avoided,” while De Long himself of French Huguenot parentage,
came in the group “to be refused point-blank.”

How little the average American of that day went to sea may be inferred
from the fact that it did not even enter De Long’s mind to mention
“Americans” among the various categories to be considered for his crew,
though not forty years before in the heyday of wooden ships, the sails
of Yankee clippers manned by Yankee seamen, whitened every ocean.

In early June, De Long came west and at Mare Island joined us to
witness the final completion and trial of the ship. Completely
satisfied with the changes made in the ship, he had nothing but praise
for the manner in which we, his three subordinates, had carried on in
his absence, and waved aside the gloomy prognostications of the Navy
Yard officers and their comments about inadequate spars and sails,
improper shape of hull, and (to put it briefly) the _Jeannette_ as a
whole, which they damned euphemistically in their official trial report:

“_So far as practicable_, we are of the opinion that she has been
repaired and placed in condition for service in the Arctic Ocean.”

But on one thing, securing an escort as far as Alaska, De Long had
firmly set his heart. He was anxious to get from San Francisco into the
Arctic as rapidly as possible to take advantage of what summer weather
he could in working his way north. The weather at sea to be expected
being mostly head winds, speed meant proceeding under steam rather than
under sail on the long trip to Alaska. This of necessity would use up
most of our coal, forcing us to start the Arctic part of our journey
with our bunkers either empty or what was almost as bad, full of such
inferior and almost unburnable coal as was available in Alaska; unless
an escort ship accompanied us as far as the Arctic Circle to replenish
our bunkers then with the excellent anthracite obtainable in San
Francisco.

Regardless, however, of all his arguments and his persuasions, De Long
was unable to get the commandant at Mare Island to approve the detail
of any naval vessel for this duty; nor, with Bennett unfortunately
abroad, did he have, in spite of his most urgent telegrams, any better
luck in forcing the Navy Department itself to order one. In this
dilemma, at the last minute Bennett saved the situation by a cable from
Paris, authorizing the charter of a schooner, the _Fanny A. Hyde_, to
carry the coal north. De Long, relieved of his worry but exasperated
beyond measure by the controversy, eased his mind by wiring back to the
_Herald_,

“Thank God, I have a man at my back to see me through when countries
fail!”

On June 28, the _Jeannette_ was commissioned as a ship of the Navy.
Thirty years have passed since then, but still that gay scene is as
fresh and bright in my memory as only yesterday. Our entire ship’s
company was mustered on the poop for the ceremony, officers in the
glitter of swords, gold lace, and cocked hats to starboard, seamen in
sober navy blue to port. Between those lines of rough seamen about to
dare the Arctic ice, Emma De Long stepped forth, as fresh and lovely
on that June day as summer itself, the very embodiment of youthful
feminine grace if ever I have seen it in any port on this earth. With
a dazzling smile that seemed to take in not only our captain but every
member of his crew as well, she manned the halliards and amidst the
hoarse cheers of the sailors swiftly ran aloft our flag, a beautiful
silken ensign lovingly fashioned for her husband’s ship by the slender
fingers which for the first time now hoisted it over us. And then with
a seagoing salute as our new banner reached the masthead, she passed
the halliards to the quartermaster, stepped back to De Long’s side,
and clung proudly to his arm while he read the orders detailing him to
the command, and the commandant of the Navy Yard, Commodore Colhoun,
formally (and no doubt thankfully) turned the ship over to him.

A few days later, under our own steam we moved from Mare Island to San
Francisco and there, away from the din of the yard workmen finally, we
finished in peace loading stores in preparation for departure.

At last, on July 8, 1879, with the North Pole as our destination, the
_Jeannette_ weighed anchor, and gaily dressed out in all her signal
flags, slowly steamed through the harbor, escorted by all the larger
craft of the San Francisco Yacht Club, while as an indication of the
esteem of Californians generally, Governor Irwin himself accompanied us
to sea aboard a special tug.

That was a gala day for San Francisco, climaxing a week of banquets
and farewell parties given for us in the city. Telegraph Hill was
black with cheering crowds; on every merchant vessel in the bay as we
passed flags dipped and impromptu salutes rang out. From the Presidio,
a national salute blazed from the fortifications as we passed, the
Army’s godspeed on our mission to their brothers of the Navy. It was
well the Army saluted us, for that was the only official salute we
received on our departure. De Long, much chagrined, noted as I noted,
that not a single naval vessel, not a single naval officer, took part
in the ovation at our departure, and that though three warships, the
_Alaska_, the _Tuscarora_, and the _Alert_, lay at the Navy Yard only
twenty-six miles away, and one of them at least might have been sent
for the purpose. And as if to emphasize the point, the navy yard tug
_Monterey_, which that very morning had brought the commandant down to
San Francisco on other business, not only lay silently at her wharf
while we steamed by her, but fifteen minutes later crossed our wake
hardly a mile astern of us and without even a blast of her whistle as
a farewell, steamed off in the direction of Mare Island.

From the machinery hatch where I was keeping one eye out for my clumsy
engines and the other out for my last long glimpse of home, I watched
in puzzled surprise as the _Monterey_ silently disappeared astern,
then looking up at the bridge nearly overhead, caught a glimmer of
a wry smile on De Long’s face as he watched the _Monterey_. A navy
expedition, we were sailing without the presence of a single naval
representative in that vast crowd of men and ships cheering us on;
worse perhaps, for it seemed as if we were being studiously ignored.
Why? I have often wondered. Not enough rank on the _Jeannette_, perhaps.

But this was the only cloud on our departure, and I doubt if
overwhelmed in the roar of the guns from the Presidio, the cheers from
the citizens of San Francisco, and the shrieking of whistles from the
flag-decorated vessels we passed, others, especially civilians, ever
noticed it.

Slowly, under engines only, we steamed out the Golden Gate and met the
long swells of the Pacific. Astern, one by one the escorting yachts
turned back. On the starboard wing of the bridge at her husband’s side
stood Emma De Long, a sailor’s daughter, and after a hectic courtship
terminating finally in a sudden shipboard marriage in the far-off
harbor of Le Havre, for eight years now a sailor’s wife. Silently she
looked forward through the rigging, past furled sails, past yards
and mast and bowsprit, across the waves toward the unknown north.
Occasionally she smiled a little at De Long, rejoicing with him on the
surface at least that at last his dream had come true, her eyes shining
in her pride in the strength and the love of the man by whom she stood.
But what her real feelings were, I, a rough seaman, could only guess,
for she said nothing as she clung to the rail, her gaze riveted over
the sea to the north into which in a few brief hours were to disappear
forever her husband and her husband’s ship.

We stood on a few miles more. The coast line astern became hazy,
our escorting fleet of yachts dwindled away to but one. Then a bell
jangled harshly in the engine room below me, the engines stopped. For
a few brief minutes the _Jeannette_ rolled in the swells while to the
shrilling of the silver pipe in the mouth of Jack Cole, bosun, our
starboard whaleboat was manned, lowered, and shoved off, carrying
toward that lone yacht which now lay to off our quarter, Emma De Long
and her husband. There in that small boat, tossing unevenly in the
waves a shiplength off, was spoken the last farewell. A brief embrace,
a tender kiss, and De Long, balancing himself on the thwarts, handed
his wife up over the low side of the yacht.

Another moment, and seated in the sternsheets of the whaleboat, De Long
was once more simply the sailor. Sharply his commands drifted across
the waves to us,

“Shove off!”

The bowman pushed clear of the yacht.

“Let fall!”

In silence, except for the steady thrash of the oars, our whaleboat
came back to us, rounded to under the davits, was hoisted aboard. Again
the bell jangled below. Our engines revolved slowly, the _Jeannette_
sluggishly gathered speed, the helmsman pointed her west northwest.
Off our quarter, the yacht came about, swiftly picked up headway, and
with the two ships on opposite courses, she dropped rapidly astern.
For a few minutes, with strained eyes I watched a white handkerchief
fluttering across the water at us, then it faded in the distance. The
bosun secured the whaleboat for sea, piped down, and without further
ceremony, the sea routine on the _Jeannette_ commenced. I took a final
look at the distant coast and went below to watch the operation of my
engines at close range.




CHAPTER V


Of our passage to the Alaskan Peninsula, there is not much to record.
It was a shakedown cruise literally enough. The _Jeannette_, between
the newly added weight of her hull reenforcements and the excessive
amount of stores and coal aboard, was so grossly overloaded she had
hardly two feet freeboard left amidships, and she labored so heavily
in the seas as a consequence that for seagoing qualities, I do her no
injustice when I say that as a ship she was little superior to various
of Ericsson’s ironclad monitors with which I fell in on blockade
duty during the late war. Indeed, had it not been for our masts and
spars, our nearly submerged hull would no doubt have pleased even John
Ericsson himself as affording a properly insignificant target for enemy
gunfire.

From our second day out, when the breeze freshened a bit from the
northwest and De Long, easing her off a few points to the southward,
spread all our canvas to take advantage of it, we were under both sail
and steam, but with the seas breaking continuously over our rail and
our decks awash most of the time. With our negligible freeboard, we
lifted to nothing but took all the seas aboard as they came, rolling
heavily and wallowing amongst the waves about as gracefully as a pig in
a pen.

In this wise, we discovered a few things, among them the fact that we
were burning five tons of coal a day and making only four knots with
our engines, which gave us hardly a hundred miles for a day’s run.
Lieutenant Chipp, an excellent seaman if there ever was one but who had
not before been out in the _Jeannette_, was certain he could do as well
under sail alone as I was doing under steam, with a consequent saving
of our coal, and persuaded the captain to let him try. So below we
banked our fires, while the sailors racing through the rigging loosed
all our square sails in addition to the fore and aft rig we already had
set.

It was interesting to watch Chipp’s disillusionment. With all canvas
spread up to the fore and main topgallant sails (the _Jeannette_
carried nothing above these) Chipp started bravely out on the starboard
tack, but in the face of a northwest breeze, he soon found that like
most square riggers, she sailed so poorly by the wind, he had to pay
her off and head directly for Hawaii before we began to log even four
knots. That was bad enough but worse was to come. Having spent most of
the afternoon watch experimenting with the trim of the sails, Chipp
finally arrived at a combination to which we logged about four and
a half knots, though in the direction of our destination, Unalaska
Island, we were making good hardly three. Thus trimmed we ran an hour
while the seagoing Chipp in oil skins and boots sloshed over our awash
deck from bowsprit to propeller well, his beard dripping water, his
eyes constantly aloft, studying the set of every sail from flying jib
to spanker in the hope of improving matters.

In this apparently his inspection gave him no cause for optimism, for
after a final shake of the head, he decided to come about and try her
on the port tack, to see if by any chance she sailed better there, as
is occasionally the case with some ships owing to the unsymmetrical
effect of the drag of the screw. Stationing himself amidships, Chipp
gave the orders.

Down went the wheel. Then came the final shock. To his great
discomfiture, Chipp was wholly unable to bring the lumbering
_Jeannette_ into the wind and come about! Twice he tried, only to
have the ship each time hang “in irons” with yards banging and sails
flapping crazily till she fell off again and picked up headway on her
old tack. After two failures, De Long tried his hand at it, then
Danenhower made an attempt, but in spite of the nautical skill of all
her deck officers and the smart seamanship of her crew, the _Jeannette_
simply could not be made to tack. For all they could do under sail, the
_Jeannette_ might still be on that starboard tack headed for Honolulu,
if the captain had not finally given up in disgust and roared out to
his executive officer in the waist of the ship struggling with the
sheets to square away for another attempt,

“Belay that! Leave her to me, Chipp! I’ll tack this tub!” and reaching
for the bell pull, he rang the engine room,

“Full speed ahead!”

Knowing De Long’s impetuous nature, I had for some time been suspecting
such a result and in the engine room, I had both coalheavers and
engineers standing by, so I was ready with both boilers and machinery.
I yanked open the throttle myself, and our back-acting connecting rods
began to shuttle athwartships. Quickly our shaft came up to fifty
revolutions. Above I heard the captain bellow,

“Hard a’ lee!”

This time, driven by her screw, the _Jeannette_ maintained her headway,
came obediently up into the wind, fell off to starboard, and quickly
filled away on the port tack. When I poked my head above the machinery
hatch coaming to observe results, there was the crestfallen Chipp just
outboard of me, busily engaged in securing all on his new course, and I
could not resist, a little maliciously, suggesting to him,

“Hey, brother! You want to stay at sea? Well, while you’re still young
enough to learn, take my advice and study engineering. Sailing ships?
In a few years, they’ll all be as dead as triremes! Better start now.
Let me lend you a good book on boilers!”

But Chipp, still hardly willing to believe that he was beaten, seized a
belaying pin, waved it in my direction, retorted hotly,

“Get below with your greasy machinery and sooty boilers! They’re the
ruination of any vessel! Sails dead, eh? Unship that damned propeller
of yours and I’ll tack her!” He jammed his sou’wester viciously down
over his ears and ignoring my offer strode forward to check the set of
the jibs.

De Long, leaning over the bridge, peering down at me over his dripping
glasses, took my gibe at sails more philosophically.

“Well, chief,” he observed, “she handles now like nothing I ever sailed
in before, but I suppose it’s my fault, not hers, she’s so low in the
water. When we’ve burned some of this coal and lightened up, perhaps
she’ll do better.” He puffed meditatively at his pipe while he turned
to examine the compass. We were hardly within six points of the wind.
In dismay De Long muttered, “Heading north! This course will never do
if we want to get to Alaska this season. I guess we’ll have to douse
sail, stick to the engines, and lay her dead into the wind, west
nor’west for Unalaska, till the breeze shifts anyway.” He cupped his
hands, shouted after his first officer,

“Mr. Chipp!”

Chipp, just passing the fore shrouds, turned, looked inquisitively up
at the bridge.

“Mr. Chipp, furl all sail! We’ll proceed under steam alone till further
orders!”

For three days we kicked along with unfavorable weather through
rain, mist, and head seas. The _Jeannette_ labored, groaned, and
with no canvas to steady her, rolled and pitched abominably. Our
two scientists, Newcomb and Collins, at the first roll went under
with seasickness, and as the weather grew worse their misery passed
description, though as is usual in such cases, they got scant comfort
from the rest of us. What queer quirk of the seagoing character it is
that makes the sailor, ordinarily the most open-hearted and sympathetic
of human beings, openly derisive of such sufferings, I know not, but we
were no exceptions, and towards Collins in particular, whose puns had
occasionally made some of us in the wardroom self-conscious, we were
especially barbed in our expressions of mock solicitude.

But if the seasickness of our men of science excited only our mirth,
no such merry reaction greeted our discovery that Ah Sam, our Chinese
cook, was also similarly indisposed. At first that Ah Sam was seasick
was solely a deduction on our part to account for his complete
disappearance from the galley, and the fact that for meal after meal
we had to make out in the messroom with only such cold scraps as
Charley Tong Sing, the steward, dished out. But when two days went by
thus, Ah Sam’s whereabouts became a matter of concern to all of us and
especially to the doctor. Still where he had stowed himself, even the
bosun could not discover, and to all our inquiries about Ah Sam and to
all our complaints about the food, we got from Charley only a shake of
the head and in a high singsong the unvaried reply,

“Ah Sam, he velly sick man now. Cholly Tong Sing, he no feel so good
too.”

With this unsatisfactory state of affairs in our supply department
we had perforce to remain content, until after three days of total
eclipse, Ah Sam rose again, one might say, almost from the dead.

I had just come up from the humid engine room to the main deck, and
still bathed in perspiration, had paused to get my lungs full of fresh
salt air before diving aft into the shelter of the poop. For a moment,
with the wind blowing through my whiskers, I clung to the main shrouds.
With both feet braced wide apart on the heaving deck, I stood there
cooling off, when from the open passage to the port chartroom, which
was the as yet unused workroom for Newcomb’s taxidermy, I heard in the
doctor’s unmistakable Virginian accent,

“Well, I’ll be damned! Lend a hand here, Melville!”

I poked my head through the door. Ambler, who I afterwards learned had
been tracking down the source of some mysterious groans, had pulled
open a locker beneath the chart table, and there, neatly fitted into
that confined space, was the lost Ah Sam!

I gasped. Have you ever seen a seasick Chinaman? The combination of Ah
Sam’s natural yellow complexion with the sickly green pallor induced
beneath his skin by _mal de mer_, gave him a ghastly appearance the
like of which no ordinary corpse could duplicate. To this weird effect
his shrunken body contributed greatly, for he had certainly disgorged
everything he had ever assimilated since emigrating from China. (The
evidence for this apparently exaggerated statement was such as to
convince the most incredulous, but I will not go into details.)

Surgeon Ambler, holding his nose with one hand, grabbed Ah Sam by the
pigtail and unceremoniously jerked him forth. Immediately Ah Sam sagged
to the deck, his eyes rolling piteously.

Also holding my nose, I seized our cook by one shoulder and dragged him
out on deck, where the surgeon gave him a dose of chloroform, which
composed him somewhat. Why he had not already died, shut up in that
locker, I cannot comprehend except on the assumption that he grew up
in one of those stinkpot factories which Chipp, who was an authority
on that country, claimed Chinese pirates maintain. But fearful lest he
die yet unless kept out in the air, the captain planked him down at
the lee wheel, where under the constant eye of the helmsman, he could
not again crawl off to hide in some glory hole. There, clutching with
a death grip at the spokes as the wheel spun beneath his fingers, Ah
Sam stayed till next day, a fearful sight with pigtail flying in the
breeze and eyes almost popping from their sockets each time a green sea
came aboard; and whenever she took a heavy roll, poor Ah Sam’s lower
jaw sagged open and his tongue cleaved to the roof of his mouth. Such a
picture of abject despair and utter anguish as that Chinaman, I never
saw.

The fourth day out the weather cleared, moderated somewhat, and the
wind shifted to the northeast, so that assisted again by our sails,
running on the starboard tack and keeping our desired course, we made a
little over five knots for a day’s run of one hundred and thirty miles.

As we steamed toward Alaska, we gradually settled down with Chipp
laboring continuously to get everything properly stowed. On deck,
Ice Pilot Dunbar, Bosun Cole, and Ice Quartermaster Nindemann were
designated as watch officers, with the seamen under them divided into
two watches of four hours each. Below in the black gang, I divided
my little force of six men into two watches of six hours each with
Machinist Lee and Fireman, 1st Class, Bartlett in charge of the other
two men comprising each watch.

For twenty-three days we stood on toward Unalaska Island in the
Aleutian chain, a run of about two thousand miles from San Francisco.
With better weather, our various landsmen began to show on deck,
having acquired sealegs of a sort. Newcomb, first up, fitted out the
port chartroom as his taxidermy shop, spread his tools, and went
fishing over the side for albatross almost as soon as he was able to
drag himself out of his bunk. With a hook and a line baited with a
chunk of salt pork towing astern in the broken water of our wake, he
waited patiently but without results while an occasional bird wheeled
overhead, till at last, still wan from retching, he turned in, leaving
his hook overboard. But Newcomb, whom the doctor and I (chaffing him
on his Yankee accent) had nicknamed “Ninkum,” was decidedly game.
It needed no more than a call from Ambler or me on sighting a new
albatross eyeing from aloft that bit of salt pork, of

“Hey, Ninky, quick! Come and catch your goose!” to bring little
Newcomb, aflame with scientific ardor, tumbling up from the poop to man
his line hopefully.

At last an albatross measuring some seven feet in wing spread, which
for this ocean is good-sized, swooped down and swallowed the bait, and
a bedlam of cries from the anguished bird ensued which attracted the
notice of all hands. Then came a battle, in which for a while it seemed
debatable whether the albatross, flapping its huge wings frantically at
one end of the line would come inboard, or whether little Newcomb, not
yet wholly up to par, tugging on the other end, would go overboard to
join it amongst the waves. But Newcomb won at last, landed his bird,
promptly skinned it, and prepared it for mounting. And so much has the
prosaic power of steam already done to kill the ancient superstitions
of the sea, that this albatross, ingloriously hooked, came to its death
at the hands of a bird-stuffer without objection or visible foreboding
from any mariner aboard.

At last, twenty-three days out of San Francisco, with our bunkers
nearly empty from fighting head winds, and anxious to make port before
the coal gave out completely and forced us to rely on our sails alone,
we made the Aleutian Islands, only to find them shrouded in thick fog.
For Danenhower, our navigator, trouble started immediately. The only
chart he had covering that coast was one issued thirty years before by
the Imperial Russian Hydrographic Office, and it was quickly apparent
that numberless small islands looming up through rifts in the fog were
not down on the chart at all, while others he was looking for, were
evidently incorrectly located.

Worst of all, Danenhower could not even accurately determine our own
position, for when the sun momentarily broke through the clouds, the
horizon was obscured in mist, and when the fog lifted enough to show
the horizon, the sun was always invisible beneath an overcast sky. For
hours on end, Danenhower haunted the bridge, clutching his sextant
whenever the horizon showed, poised like a cat before a rat-hole, if
the sun peeped out even momentarily, to pounce upon it. But he never
got his sight.

Between thick fogs and racing tides, with our little coal pile getting
lower and lower, we had a nerve-racking time for two days trying to get
through Aqueton Pass into Behring Sea, the _Jeannette_ anchored part of
the time, underway dead slow the remainder, nosing among the islands,
often with only the roar of breakers and the cawing of sea birds on the
rocks to give warning through the mists of the presence of uncharted
islets. Finally we slipped safely through, and to the very evident
relief of both captain and navigator, on Saturday, August 2, dropped
anchor in the harbor of Unalaska.

Naturally our first concern on entering port was coal. A brief glimpse
around the land-locked harbor showed the Alaska Fur Company’s steamer
_St. Paul_, the schooner _St. George_, owned by the same firm, and
the Revenue Cutter _Rush_, but not a sign of our coal-laden schooner,
the _Fanny A. Hyde_, nor any report of her having already passed
northward on her way to our rendezvous at St. Michael’s. So I went
ashore with Captain De Long to canvass the local fuel situation. We
found eighty tons of coal belonging to the Navy, the remnant of a
much larger lot sent north some years before, but so deteriorated
by now from long weathering and spontaneous combustion as to be in
my opinion nearly worthless. Even so, that being all the coal there
was I was investigating the problem of getting it aboard when the
commander of the Revenue Cutter requested we leave it for his use,
because it would be his sole supply in getting back to San Francisco
in the fall. Naturally we in the _Jeannette_, anxious to get as far
north as possible before dipping into what our consort was carrying for
us, were not wholly agreeable to waiving our claim as a naval vessel
to that coal in favor of the Revenue Service, but this difficulty was
soon adjusted by the offer of the Alaska Company’s agent to refill
our bunkers with some bituminous coal he had on hand, his company to
be reimbursed for it in New York by Mr. Bennett. This happy solution
settled our fuel question for the moment, so while the natives took
over the job of coaling ship, I turned my attention for a few hours to
making myself acquainted with the island.

After nearly a month at sea, I found Unalaska pleasant enough, with its
green hills surrounding the harbor and its small settlement, comprising
mainly the houses of the Fur Company’s agents and employees, their
warehouses, and last and perhaps most important just at this time, a
Greek church. It seems that the steamer _St. Paul_, which we found
in the harbor on our arrival Saturday, had just come down two days
before from the Pribilof Islands loaded with sealskins, and carrying
as passengers from those tiny rocks practically all the bachelor
sealers of Pribilof in search of what civilization (in the form of
metropolitan Unalaska) had to offer. All Thursday and Friday there was
great excitement here as the native belles paraded before the eager
eyes of these none too critical prospective bridegrooms. By Saturday,
most choices were made and the Greek Catholic Church had a busy day
as the couples passed in a continuous procession before the altar and
the Russian priest tied the knots. There being no inns or dwellings
to accommodate the multitude of honeymooners, the problem was simply
enough solved by each newly-wedded couple going directly from the
church door for a stroll among the nearby hills. By afternoon, only
some few of the sealers, idealists undoubtedly, who were unable to
discover among the native women anyone to suit them, were still left
wandering disconsolately about the town, peering into every female
face, in a queer state of indecision which the smiles of Unalaska’s
beauties seemed unable to resolve.

Between coaling ship, taking aboard furs for winter clothing, and
receiving some six tons of dried fish for dog food, we on the
_Jeannette_ were kept busy for the three days of our stay, while our
nights were enlivened by the most vicious swarms of mosquitoes it has
ever been my misfortune to encounter, and all attempts to keep them out
of my bunk with the ill-fitting bed curtains were wholly futile. My
bald spot was an especial attraction for them; in desperation I was at
last forced to sleep in my uniform cap.

On August 6, we hoisted anchor and got underway, with the whole town on
the waterfront to see us off amidst the dipping of colors and a salute
from three small guns in front of the Fur Company’s office. I made out
plainly enough in the crowd the Russian priest with his immense beard,
but De Long and I differed sharply over the presence of any of the
brides amongst the throng. So far as I could judge, there were no women
there, merely a large crowd of men waving enviously after us as we
circled the harbor on our way toward Arctic solitude.

With our usual luck, we bucked a head wind for all the first day out,
but to our great gratification, on the second day the wind shifted to
the southward and freshened so that we logged the almost unbelievable
day’s run of a hundred and seventy-three miles for an hourly average
of seven and a quarter knots—for the _Jeannette_ almost race horse
speed! But it was too good to last. Next day we had dropped down to a
little under six knots, and then the breeze failed us altogether and
we finished the last three days of our run to St. Michael’s with our
useless sails furled, under steam alone at our usual speed of four
knots.




CHAPTER VI


The Kuro-Si-Wo Current, the “black tide” of Japan, somewhat akin to
our Gulf Stream, rises in the equatorial oceans south of Asia, flows
eastward, is partly deflected northward by the Philippines, and then
impelled by the southwest monsoons flows at a speed reaching three
knots past Japan in a northeasterly direction, a deep blue stream
some twelve degrees warmer than the surrounding Pacific Ocean. It was
a commonly accepted belief that eastward of Kamchatka, it separated
into two branches, one flowing southward along the west coast of North
America to temper the coasts of Alaska and British Columbia, while
the second branch continued northward through Behring Strait into the
Arctic Ocean.

As is well known, for several centuries most of the attempts to reach
the North Pole had gone by way of Baffin Bay and Greenland, where
without exception they were all blocked by ice. Ours was the first
expedition to make the attempt by way of Behring Sea, De Long being
willing to test the theory that the warm waters of the Kuro-Si-Wo,
flowing northward through the Arctic Ocean, might give a relatively
ice-free channel to a high northern latitude, perhaps even to the Pole
itself; while if it did not, the shores of Wrangel Land (of which
next to nothing was yet known), stretching northward and perhaps even
crossing the Pole to reappear in the Atlantic as Greenland as many
supposed, would offer a base in which to winter the ship while sledge
parties could work north along its coasts toward the Pole.

On these two hypotheses rested mainly our choice of route. With the
_Jeannette_ in the Behring Sea at last, it remained only to pick up our
sledging outfit and put our theories to the test. So for St. Michael’s
on the mainland of Alaska we headed, where six hundred miles to the
northward of Unalaska on the fringe of the Arctic Circle our dogs
awaited us and our rendezvous with the _Fanny A. Hyde_ was to take
place.

The passage took us six days, and many were the discussions round our
wardroom mess table while we steamed on through Behring Sea approaching
the real north, as to the correctness of these theories. Especially
heated were the arguments with respect to the extent of Wrangel Land
whose very existence some polar authorities doubted altogether, since
the late Russian Admiral Wrangel (for whom it was named) in spite of
a most diligent search, egged on by native reports, never himself was
able to find it. As for Kellett and the whaler Long, who afterwards and
some years apart claimed to have seen it and even to have coasted its
southern shores, they were not everywhere believed.

Aside from these uncertainties, speculation waxed hot over a secondary
object of our voyage, to us an unfortunate but unavoidable complication
to our task, a search for Professor Nordenskjöld, a Swedish explorer.
Attempting that sixteenth century dream, never yet realized, of the
Northeast Passage from Europe to the Orient via the Siberian Ocean, he
had sailed northward the year before us in the _Vega_ from Stockholm to
circumnavigate Asia. Nordenskjöld, so it was reported, had successfully
reached by the winter time of 1878 Cape Serdze Kamen on the coast of
Siberia only a little north of Behring Strait, where almost in sight of
his goal, he was frozen in. Since then, except for an unverified rumor
from the natives of that occurrence, nothing further had been heard of
him or of his ship and naturally both in Sweden and in Russia there was
considerable anxiety over his fate.

As a consequence, before sailing from San Francisco, we had been
ordered by the Secretary of the Navy to search off Cape Serdze Kamen
for Nordenskjöld, to assist him if necessary, and only after assurance
of his safety, to proceed northward on our own voyage. But we were
hopeful that because of the very open summer reported at Unalaska by
whalers coming in from the north, Nordenskjöld had been enabled to
resume his voyage southward and that we should on our arrival at St.
Michael’s obtain some definite news of his safe passage through Behring
Strait, thereby obviating the necessity of our dissipating what few
weeks were left of summer weather in searching the Siberian coasts for
him instead of striking directly for the Pole with the _Jeannette_
while the weather held.

So one by one, the days rolled by till on August 12 we finally dropped
our mudhook in St. Michael’s. After securing my engines, I came on deck
to find De Long turning from the unprepossessing collection of native
huts and the solitary warehouse which made up the Alaska Company’s
settlement there, to survey gloomily the empty harbor. Here he had
confidently expected to find the _Fanny A. Hyde_ waiting with our coal,
but no schooner was anywhere visible.

Instead of the schooner, the only boat in sight was a native kyack from
which as soon as the anchor dropped, clambered aboard for his mail Mr.
Newman, the local agent, who had about given up hope of seeing us this
year.

That our schooner had not arrived was evident enough without
discussion. But when De Long learned from Newman that they had no
tidings whatever of Nordenskjöld, that they had had so far this season
no communication with Siberia, and that at St. Michael’s they knew
even less of Nordenskjöld and his whereabouts than we when we left San
Francisco, it was obvious from the droop of the skipper’s mustaches
that his depression was complete. No schooner, no coal, and now the
prospect of having to search Siberia for Nordenskjöld instead of going
north!

De Long, as I joined him at the rail to greet Mr. Newman, was polishing
his eyeglasses on the edge of his jacket. Meticulously replacing them
on his nose as I came up, he sourly scanned the settlement ashore.

“A miserable place, Melville! Look at those dirty huts. Only four white
men and not a single white woman here, so the agent says.” He turned
to the Fur Company agent, added prophetically, “Yet do you know, Mr.
Newman, desolate as that collection of huts there is, we may yet look
back on it as a kind of earthly paradise?”

Already immersed in his long delayed mail from home, Newman nodded
absent-mindedly. Apparently he was under no illusions about life in the
far north.

The captain shrugged his shoulders, philosophically accepted the
situation, and after some difficulty in dragging Newman’s attention
away from his letters from home, we got down to business with the
agent, which of course was coal. It developed immediately that St.
Michael’s had only ten tons of coal, which were badly needed there for
the winter. This was hardly a surprise as we had every reason to expect
some such condition, but it settled any vague hopes we had that we
might coal and proceed before our schooner came. We resigned ourselves
to waiting for the _Fanny A. Hyde_.

Next came the matter of our clothing. On that at least was some
compensation for our delay. Through Mr. Newman, arrangements were made
to send ashore all the furs we had acquired at Unalaska and have the
natives (who were experts at it) make them up for us into parkas and
other suitable Arctic garments, instead of having each sailor of our
crew (who at best had only some rough skill with palm and needle on
heavy canvas) attempt with his clumsy fingers to make his own.

With that arranged, the while we waited for our schooner, we settled
down to making the best of St. Michael’s, all of us, that is, except
De Long, who chafing visibly at the delay, thought up one scheme after
another of expediting matters. But each one involved ultimately burning
even more coal than waiting there, so finally the baffled skipper
retired to his cabin to await as best he could our coal-laden tender.

But even for the seamen, making the best of St. Michael’s soon
palled and they gave up going ashore. A liberty meant nothing more
than wandering round in the mud and the grass, for the village had
nothing more to offer a sailor. Even liquor, the final lure of such
God-forsaken ports when all else fails, was here wholly absent, its
sale being illegal in Alaska Territory. The illegality our seamen knew
about, but the absence they refused to believe till a careful search
convinced them that the negligible communication of this spot with
civilization made it the one place in the wide world where the laws
prohibiting liquor were of necessity observed.

So every other distraction failing, we were thrown back on fishing,
the sailor’s last resource. Out of curiosity, we set a seine alongside
the _Jeannette_. The amount of salmon and flounders we caught opened
my eyes—we easily hauled in enough each cast to keep the whole crew in
fresh fish every meal, till our men were so sick of the sight of fish
that the little salt pork or canned meat served out occasionally from
our stores was a welcome change. I see now why these waters are the
world’s best sealing grounds—they are literally alive with food for the
seals, which by the millions swarm over the islands in these shallow
seas. The steamer _St. Paul_ which we had fallen in with at Unalaska on
her way back to America, had her hold packed solid with sealskins, one
hundred thousand of them in that vessel alone, a treasure ship indeed!

While the sailors fished, we in the wardroom cast about in various
ways for diversion. Newcomb (whom privately the captain was already
beginning to regret having brought along, for not only did Newcomb
seem never to have grown up but it was now too late to hope that he
ever would) went into business for himself. Reverting to the habits of
his forbears in far-off Salem, he went ashore with a five dollar bill,
purchased from the Alaska Company’s store a variety of needles, thread,
and similar notions, carted them a mile or two up the coast well out of
sight of St. Michael’s, set up a “Trading Post,” and proceeded to sell
his wares to the innocent Indians at just twice what the company store
was asking for them.

For this piece of sharp practice at the expense of the natives who were
helpfully engaged in making up our fur clothing, gleefully related to
the wardroom mess on his return aboard, Newcomb earned the immediate
contempt of his fellow New Englander, Dunbar, who burst out,

“You damned Yankee pedlar!” And from that day on, our ice-pilot who
himself hailed from the land of the wooden nutmegs and was therefore
perhaps touchy of making New England’s reputation any worse, refused
again to speak to Newcomb, though some of the rest of us, including
myself, felt with Newcomb that there was at least some humor in the
situation.

Tiring of fish and of St. Michael’s, I organized a duck-hunting party
with Dr. Ambler, Dunbar and Collins for my companions. For a while, I
hesitated over including Collins, for by now I had discovered he also
had a serious flaw in his character—his sole idea of humor was getting
off puns, and so far all the attempts of his shipmates in the wardroom
to cure him of it had failed. But as Collins was also our best hand
with a shotgun, I decided to stand the puns for a few hours on the
chance of increasing our bag of game and asked him to go.

We purposely took a tent and camped ashore all night to be ready for
the ducks at dawn. We got about a dozen (Collins knocked down most of
them) but without blinds to work from or decoys to attract our game,
it was a tough job and we tramped a long way along the marshy beaches
looking for game. During this search we separated, and I with my
shotgun at “ready” was scanning the beach for ducks just below a small
bluff, when suddenly there came sliding down its precipitous slope on
all fours, face first with hands and feet spread out in the mud in a
ludicrous attempt to stop himself, our meteorologist, Collins!

The spectacle was so comical that unthinkingly I roared out to Ambler,

“Look at the old cow there, sliding down the hill!” but I soon enough
regretted my outburst for it was evident that Collins, plastered with
mud from his mishap and in no humor to see anything funny in his
antics, was furious and took my remark as a deep personal insult. So
all in all, my hunting party was no great success, and by the time I
signalled our cutter to stand in and pick us up, we were all so stiff
from sleeping on the hard ground, so throbbing in every muscle from
our tramp, and so sullenly did Collins keep eyeing me, that I began to
doubt whether a dozen ducks were worth it.

Dr. Ambler, lolling back on the cushions in the sternsheets of the
cutter, homeward bound, apparently took a similar view.

“About once a year of this satisfies me completely, chief.” He paused,
ruefully massaged his aching calves, then in his careful professional
manner continued, “As a doctor, I’m convinced that man’s an animal that
must take to hard work gradually. No more plunging headlong into it for
me! I prescribe a day’s complete rest in our berths for all hands here
the minute we hit the ship!”

The doctor, I believe, followed his own prescription, and perhaps
Collins and Dunbar did too, but I didn’t have time. We had broken a
pump-rod on our way to Alaska, temporarily stopping our boiler feed. In
that emergency, the spare auxiliary I had installed at Mare Island was
immediately cut in on the feed line, saving us from hauling fires and
going back to sail alone, but it left us with no reserve pump and it
was up to me somehow to provide another rod. Neither Unalaska nor St.
Michael’s could help me in the least—a machine shop in those primitive
trading posts had never even been dreamed of.

With the help of Lee, who was a machinist, and of Bartlett, fireman,
first class, I now set about supplying a new pump-rod from our own
resources. While at Mare Island, in view of the uncertainty of repair
faculties in the Arctic, like prudent engineers we had acquired for
the _Jeannette_ quite a set of tools. I won’t exactly say we stole
them, for after all they merely moved from one spot owned by Uncle Sam
to another also under his jurisdiction, but at any rate, in good old
Navy fashion during our stay at the Navy Yard everything not nailed
down in the machine shop there that appealed to us and that we could
carry, somehow moved aboard the _Jeannette_, and now all our recent
acquisitions came in handy. I rigged up a long lathe. Out of some
square stock once intended by the Navy Yard for forging out chain
plates for the _Mohican_, we turned out a very favorable replica in
iron of our broken rod, squared off the shoulders for the pistons, cut
the threads for the retaining nuts, and long before the schooner showed
up in port, had the disabled pump reassembled with the new rod and
banging lustily away on the line once more, hammering feed water into
our steaming boiler, thus making good my promise to the captain when
the old rod broke. This particularly pleased De Long, who I am afraid,
like most Line officers, underestimating the resourcefulness of Navy
engineers and particularly Scotch ones, had been fearful that we might
have to turn back or at least take a long delay while we awaited the
arrival, on the _St. Paul’s_ return trip, of a new rod from the United
States.

For six days we waited in St. Michael’s, eyes glued to the harbor
entrance, undergoing as the captain feelingly expressed it that “hope
deferred which maketh the heart sick,” when at last on August 18 the
_Fanny A. Hyde_ showed up, beating her way closehauled into the harbor.
She was a welcome sight not only to our careworn skipper but to all of
us, who long before had completely exhausted in a couple of hours the
possibilities of St. Michael’s, and in our then state of ignorance,
were eager to move on into the even more barren Arctic.

In fact, so eager were we to be on our way that the captain signalled
the schooner not to anchor at all but to come alongside us directly,
prepared immediately for coaling.

The next three days were busy ones for all hands, lightering coal in
bags up from the schooner’s holds, dumping it through the deck scuttles
into our bunkers, and there trimming it high up under the deck beams to
take advantage of every last cubic inch of the _Jeannette’s_ stowage
space. Most of this work of muling the coal around we had to do with
our own force, for the schooner with a crew of six men only and being
a sailing vessel, with no power machinery of any kind, could assist us
but little. Here our deck winch, made of those old steam launch engines
which I had fitted aboard at Mare Island, came in very handy in saving
our backs, for with falls rigged from the yardarms by our energetic
Irish bosun, I soon had the niggerheads on that winch whipping the bags
of coal up out of the schooner’s holds and dropping them down on our
decks in grand style.

Needless to say, however, with coal littering our decks and coal dust
everywhere, with staterooms and cabins tightly sealed up to prevent
its infiltration, and with our whole crew as black as nigger minstrels,
we carefully abstained from taking aboard any other stores and least of
all our furs or dogs from ashore, till coaling was completed and the
ship washed down.

At this coaling we labored steadily until late on the twentieth of
August when checking the coal we had already transferred and what was
left aboard the schooner, I came to the conclusion that there would
still be twenty tons remaining on the _Fanny A. Hyde_ for which we
could find no stowage, even on our decks, and entering the captain’s
cabin, I suggested to him that instead of dismissing our escort at St.
Michael’s as intended, he take a chance and order her to follow us on
our next leg, the three hundred mile journey across Norton Sound and
Behring Strait to St. Lawrence Bay in Siberia, where that last twenty
tons of coal she carried, which otherwise would go back to the United
States, would just about replenish what we burned on the way over to
Asia.

To put it mildly, when I sprang this suggestion on him De Long greeted
it with a cheer, but he went me one better.

“That twenty tons she’ll certainly carry along for us, chief, but
that’s not all! What’s left in her now, and how long’ll it take you to
get her down to that last twenty tons?”

“She’s got fifty tons still aboard her, captain,” I answered. I looked
at my watch. It was getting along toward evening already. “But the
last thirty tons which we can take aboard from her, will go almighty
slow! Trimming it down inside those stifling bunkers to top ’em off
for a full due is the devil’s own job—it’ll take us all day tomorrow
certainly!”

De Long, who, downcast over the non-arrival of the schooner, had not
cracked a smile for a week, now stroked his long mustaches gleefully.

“Fine, chief! Pass the word to Lieutenant Chipp to belay any more
coaling. He’s to knock off immediately and start washing down. Here’s
where we get back one of those lost days, anyway.” De Long regarded me
with positive cheerfulness. “We’ll sail tomorrow! If the _Fanny Hyde’s_
going to carry twenty tons for us to Siberia, she might as well carry
the whole fifty that’s still aboard her! So instead of coaling here
any more, we’ll quit right now, swing ship in the morning to check
our compasses, then load furs, stores, and dogs in the afternoon, and
sail tomorrow night from this God-forsaken hole! How’ll that suit you,
chief?”

“Brother, full ahead on that!” I exclaimed. “You’ll never get St.
Michael’s hull down any too soon for me!”

So to the intense relief of the crew, Jack Cole was soon piping down
coaling gear. The schooner cast loose, shoved off, and anchored clear,
and as darkness fell the hoses were playing everywhere over the
_Jeannette’s_ topsides, washing down, while from every scupper a black
stream poured into the clear waters of the bay, as a welcome by-product
effectively putting an end to any more fishing in our vicinity.

Our last day at St. Michael’s was perhaps our busiest.

In the morning, steaming slowly round the harbor, we swung ship for
compass deviations, with Danenhower hunching his burly shoulders
constantly over the binnacle while Chipp at the pelorus took bearings
of the sun. By noon this essential task was completed and we anchored
again, commencing immediately after mess gear was stowed to receive
stores from ashore.

The display of furs we received, made up now into clothing, of
seal, mink, beaver, deer, wolf, Arctic squirrel, and fox, all to be
worn by rough seamen, would have caused pangs of jealousy among the
ladies on Fifth Avenue, who would have lingered long over each sleek
garment, lovingly caressing its velvety softness. But instead of that,
disregarded by everyone in our haste, down the hatch shot our furs,
our only concern being to get them aboard and weigh anchor.

Following the clothing came aboard assorted cargo—forty Eskimo
dogs, five dog sleds, forty sets of dog harness, four dozen pairs
of snowshoes, sixty-nine pairs of sealskin boots, ton after ton of
compressed fish for dog food, three small Eskimo skin boats called
baideras, and numberless odds and ends; while to top off all, as a
personal gift Mr. Newman insisted on presenting to the captain a very
handsomely silver-mounted Winchester repeating rifle and eight hundred
rounds of ammunition for it.

Last but not least important, came aboard some new members of our crew,
two Alaskan Indians from St. Michael’s. This pair, Alexey and Aneguin,
carefully selected on the recommendation of the entire white population
of St. Michael’s (all four of them), were after a lengthy pow-wow over
terms with the headman of the native village shipped as hunters and
dog-drivers. Alexey, as senior hunter, was to be paid twenty dollars
a month; Aneguin, his assistant, as a hunter’s mate (to put it in
nautical parlance) was to receive fifteen; and each was to draw from
the company store an outfit worth fifty dollars to start with and on
discharge to receive a Winchester rifle and 1000 cartridges. To the
wife of Alexey and to the mother of Aneguin, thus deprived of their
support, were to be issued at the _Jeannette’s_ expense from the Alaska
Company’s store, provisions to the value of five dollars each monthly
until their men should finally be returned to St. Michael’s.

These terms being finally settled to the satisfaction of all, Alexey
and Aneguin reported aboard at 5 P.M., both for the first time in
their lives dressed in “store clothes” which they had just drawn from
Mr. Newman’s stock, and proud as peacocks in shiny black Russian
hats, topped with flaming red bands. Alexey (who to the best of my
knowledge, aside from our captain, was the only married man aboard)
was accompanied by his Indian wife, a small, shy, pretty woman in furs
oddly contrasting with her husband’s stiffly worn civilized raiment,
and by his little boy. Tightly holding each other’s hands, this tiny
Alaskan group drifted wonderingly over the ship, children all in their
open-mouthed curiosity; while Aneguin, accompanied by his chief and
a delegation of natives come to see him off, was just as naive in
exclaiming over everything he saw, and the excitement of all reached a
high pitch when Captain De Long presented to Alexey’s shrinking little
wife a china cup and saucer with “U.S.N.” in gold on it, and to her
little boy, a harmonica.

As evening drew on and the hour for departure approached, Alexey and
his wife, seated on a sea chest on the poop, clung silently to each
other, till at the hoarse call of the bosun, “All visitors ashore!”
accompanied by significant gestures toward the rail, they parted
affectionately—and forever.

For a few minutes there was a grand scramble of Indians over our
bulwarks into native boats. Then to the rattling of the chain links in
the hawsepipe, our cable came slowly in and with a blast of our whistle
in salute, we got underway for St. Lawrence Bay, on the Siberian side
of Behring Sea.




CHAPTER VII


Through a light breeze and a smooth sea we steamed out in the darkness.
The _Fanny A. Hyde_, ordered to follow us at dawn, we expected to reach
port in Siberia even ahead of our own arrival since she was now very
light while we, heavily laden once more, were nearly awash.

A new note in seagoing came into our lives upon departing from St.
Michael’s—our forty dogs. They quickly proved to be the damnedest
nuisances ever seen aboard ship, roaming the deck in carefree fashion,
snarling and fighting among themselves every five minutes, and unless
one was armed with a belaying pin in each hand, it was nearly suicide
to enter a pack of the howling brutes to stop them. They fought for
pure enjoyment so it seemed to me, immune almost from any harm, for
their fur was so thick and tangled, they got nothing but mouthfuls
of hair from snapping at each other. In spite of fairly continual
fighting, we got the ship along for after all my engines drove her on,
but how we should ever fare under sail alone I wondered, unless each
seaman soon got the knack of disregarding half a dozen pseudo-wolves
leaping at him each time he rushed to ease a sheet or to belay a
halliard or a brace. Meanwhile we let the dogs severely alone, it being
the duty of Aneguin and Alexey to feed and water them, and apparently
also to beat them well so that their fighting was not one continuous
performance.

We had expected to make the three hundred miles across Behring Sea to
St. Lawrence Bay in Siberia in two and a half days, but we did not. Our
second day out, the wind freshened, there was a decided swell from the
northward, and all in all the weather had a very unsettled look. With
most of our sail set, we logged five knots during the morning, but as
the seas picked up, the ship began to pitch heavily, and in the early
afternoon a green sea came aboard that carried away both our forward
water-closets, fortunately empty at the time. At this mishap, we furled
most of our canvas and slowed the engines to thirty revolutions,
greatly easing the motion.

But as the night drew on it became evident we were in for it. The ocean
hereabouts is so shallow that an ugly sea quickly kicks up under even a
fresh breeze, and we were soon up against a full gale, not a pleasing
prospect for a grossly overloaded ship. There was nothing for it,
however, except to heave to, head to the wind, and ride it out under
stormsails only. Accordingly in the first dog watch, I banked fires,
stopped the engines, and the _Jeannette_ lay to on the starboard tack
under the scantiest canvas we dared carry—stormsail, fore and aft sail,
and spanker only, all reefed down to the very last row of reef-points.

For thirty hours while the gale howled, we rode it out thus, the
overloaded _Jeannette_ groaning and creaking, submerged half the time,
with confused seas coming aboard in all directions. Every hatch on deck
was tightly battened down; otherwise solid water, often standing two
and three feet deep on our decks, would have quickly poured below to
destroy our slight buoyancy and sink us like a rock.

But even so, in spite of lying to, we took a terrific battering, and
time after time as we plunged into a green sea, it seemed beyond belief
that our overloaded hull should still remain afloat.

In the middle of this storm, worn from a night of watchfulness, with
Chipp on the bridge temporarily as his relief, Captain De Long sat
dozing in his cabin chair, not daring even to crawl into his bunk lest
he lose a second in responding to any call. Suddenly a solid sea came
over the side, with a wild roar broke on board, and in a rushing wall
of water carrying all before it, hit the poop bulkhead, smashed in the
windows to the captain’s stateroom, and in an instant flooded the room.
Our startled skipper coming out of his doze found himself swimming for
his life in his own cabin, all his belongings afloat in a tangle about
him!

For the first hour of that gale, the howling of our forty Eskimo dogs
was a fair rival to the howling of the wind through the rigging, but as
the waves began to break aboard, the poor dogs, half-drowned, quieted
to a piteous whimper, and with their tails between their legs, sought
shelter from the rushing seas in the lee of the galley, the bulwarks,
the hatch coamings even—anything that would save them from the impact
of those swirling waves. For once there was no fighting, each dog being
solely absorbed in keeping his nose above water, and when possible on
that heaving deck, in keeping his claws dug into the planking to save
himself from being flung headlong into the lee scuppers.

But the gale finally blew itself out, and thankfully spreading our
reefed canvas, we arrived four days out of St. Michael’s in lonely
St. Lawrence Bay, to find the little _Jeannette_, a tiny symbol of
civilization, dwarfed in that vast solitude by snow-capped mountains
rising precipitously from the water, a magnificent spectacle of nature
in her grandest mood.

But our isolation was broken soon enough by two large baideras which
pushed out to meet us, crowded with natives who without leave clambered
over our rails, eagerly offering in broken English to engage themselves
as whalers, which naturally enough they assumed was the purpose of our
cruise.

But we welcomed them gladly enough for another reason. What did they
know of Nordenskjöld?

From their chief, a tall, brawny fellow calling himself “George,”
after much cross-examination De Long elicited the information that a
steamer, smaller even than the _Jeannette_, had been there apparently
three months before, and that during the previous winter he, Chief
George, had on a journey across East Cape to Koliutchin Bay on the
north coast of Siberia, seen the same ship frozen in the ice there.
This seemed to check with our last news on Nordenskjöld’s _Vega_. If
indeed she had reached St. Lawrence Bay and passed south, she was of
course safe now and we need no longer concern ourselves. But was it
really the _Vega_?

Patiently, like a skilled lawyer examining an ignorant witness, De Long
worked on George to find that out. Who was the _Vega’s_ captain? An
old man with a white beard who spoke no English. Who then had George
conversed with? Another officer, a Russian, who spoke their tongue, the
Tchuchee dialect, like a native. Who was he? On this point, George,
uncertain over nearly everything else, was absolutely positive, and
answered proudly,

“He name Horpish.”

But to De Long’s great disappointment, on consulting the muster roll
of the _Vega_ with which we had been furnished, no “Horpish” appeared
thereon. Again and again, Chipp, De Long, and I pored over that list
of the Swedish, Danish, and Russian names of the men and officers
accompanying Nordenskjöld, while George, leaning over our shoulders,
repeated over and over, “Horpish, he Horpish,” obviously disgusted at
our inability to understand our own language.

Finally De Long put his finger on the answer. There, a few lines down
from Nordenskjöld on that list was the man we were looking for—

“Lieutenant Nordquist, Imperial Russian Navy.”

I pronounced it a few times—Nordquist, Horpish—yes, it must be he.
Phonetically in Tchuchee that was a good match for Nordquist.

And this was all we learned. The steamer, whatever her name, had
stayed only one day, then departed to the southward, loaded according
to George with “plenty coals.”

With some bread and canned meat in return for this sketchy information,
we eased George and his followers, greatly disappointed at not being
signed on as whalers, over the side before we lost anything. For while
these Tchuchees appeared dirty, lazy, and utterly worthless, their
unusual size made them potentially dangerous enemies when in force, and
we posted an armed watch on deck as a precaution.

Our schooner arrived soon after we did, and we finished hoisting out
of her all the coal down to the last lump, ending up with 132 tons
stowed in our bunkers, which was their total capacity, and with 28 tons
more as a deckload, giving us a total of 160 tons with which to start
into the Arctic, nearly twice the amount of coal the _Jeannette_ was
originally designed to carry.

On August 27 we finished coaling and steamed out towing the schooner
astern of us, for it seemed unsafe with her little crew of only six
to leave her to get underway in desolate St. Lawrence Bay amidst
that ugly-looking crowd of brawny Tchuchees, all experts at handling
harpoons and looking none too scrupulous over what they chose to hurl
them at.

Once clear of the harbor, we headed north for Cape East, while the
lightened _Fanny A. Hyde_, carrying now as cargo only the last mail we
ever sent back, spread her sails and with (for her but not for us) a
fair wind was soon hull down to the southward, our last link with home
finally severed.

Steaming steadily into a strong head wind, we stood on through Behring
Strait and during the night passed between East Cape and the Diomede
Islands, three barren rocks jutting from the sea, forming stepping
stones almost between the continents of Asia and America, over which
may very well have passed ages ago that immigration at the time of the
dispersion of the human race which brought man first to North and then
to South America.

But this human migration of former ages, even if so, interested us
little in comparison with what the migratory waters of the ocean might
be doing now. At the captain’s orders, Collins prepared a set of
thermometers and dropped them overboard strung out on a line. If the
Kuro-Si-Wo Current actually flowed northward into the Arctic Sea as
we hoped, through this narrow funnel it must pass, and as we steamed
slowly northward through the strait, Collins periodically read the
thermometers to get the temperatures at varying depths, while Newcomb
tended a dredge towed astern to obtain samples of the marine life at
the bottom.

To our keen chagrin, the most that could be said for the results of
our observations was that they were neutral—they proved or disproved
nothing. The water was about the same in temperature from top to bottom
and did not differ appreciably from the temperature of the air, a
result which certainly did not indicate the presence of any marked warm
current thereabouts. But then on the other hand, as we passed through,
the fresh breeze we encountered from the northwest, blowing down
through the strait, might well on that day have upset or even reversed
the normal flow of water in a channel only twenty-eight fathoms deep.
The thermometers proved nothing. How about the dredge? Eagerly we
awaited a report from Newcomb with respect to his examination of its
contents. Were the specimens in any degree symptomatic of the tropical
waters of the Kuro-Si-Wo Current?

But there also we got scant comfort. The catch in the dredge was
nondescript, and no deductions could safely be drawn. If the Kuro-Si-Wo
Current on which we were banking so heavily for the success of our
expedition flowed into the polar seas, at least we found no evidence of
it.

As the day dawned with the empty horizon widening out before us to
the north, we found ourselves at last in the Arctic Ocean, our gateway
to the Pole. We stood to the northwest with somewhat overcast skies,
coasting along the northern shores of Siberia before striking off for
Wrangel Land, our thorough-going captain determined to steam a little
out of his way to make one more stop at Cape Serdze Kamen to check
Chief George’s story of the _Vega’s_ actually having been there and
left.

In the late afternoon, we made out a headland on our port hand, which
the vigilant Danenhower, fortunately able just then to catch a sight
of the sun to establish our position, pronounced as the desired cape.
We stood in and anchored, but with steam up ready for getting underway
instantly, since we were on a lee shore with none too good a holding
ground.

After supper, the starboard whaleboat was cleared away and lowered, and
the captain, backed up by Chipp, Dunbar, Collins and Alexey, started in
for a collection of native houses on the beach to investigate about the
_Vega_. But when they approached the shore, they found such a heavy sea
rolling over a rapidly moving fringe of pack ice that the whaleboat’s
efforts to get through were wholly ineffectual and after half an hour
were abandoned when it was observed that the natives were getting ready
to come out themselves in a skin boat.

Led by their chief in a bright red tunic, these latter, better
acquainted with the coast than we, managed to make passage through the
ice into the open water off shore, where they followed the whaleboat
back to our ship and then over the side into the _Jeannette’s_ cabin.

But there, in spite of Alexey’s best efforts with native dialects
on the chief, who had all the dignity of a king, we were unable to
make our questions about Nordenskjöld understood, or get anything
understandable out of him except the one word,

“Schnapps?”

But to this De Long shook his head. He was too well acquainted with
the results to pass fire-water out to natives. So with this we were
stalled till the natives pushed forth a decrepit old squaw, who once an
inhabitant of Kings Island, apparently had recognized Alexey’s dialect.
But even on her, neither the name of Nordenskjöld nor of the _Vega_
made any impression till Alexey, remembering Chief George’s reference
to the Russian officer who spoke Tchuchee, mentioned Lieutenant
Nordquist.

Immediately the squaw became all animation and her face lighted with
understanding.

“Horpish?” She nodded her head vigorously and from then on, all was
plain sailing. Alexey had difficulty in getting in a word sideways,
“Horpish” had made such an impression. “Horpish’s” ship had been
there a day, coming from a little further west in Koliutchin Bay,
where she had wintered, a fact very soon verified by Chipp, who going
ashore to visit that spot, came back with a miscellaneous collection
of articles—Swedish coins, buttons from Russian, Danish, and Swedish
uniforms, and prized most of all by the natives and hardest to get from
them, a number of empty tin cans!

This evidence settled conclusively our search for Nordenskjöld and the
_Vega_. Undoubtedly she had been at Cape Serdze Kamen as rumored; she
had passed undamaged through Behring Strait, and must now be on her way
southward through the Pacific to Japan, if indeed she had not already
arrived there. We need no longer concern ourselves over Nordenskjöld
and his crew, their safety was assured.

So on the last day of August, we hoisted in our whaleboat and stood out
to the northward. It being Sunday, at 2 P.M. we rigged ship for church
in the cabin, and our captain, a devoutly religious man, held Divine
Service, attended by all the crew save those on watch.

With heads bowed, we stood while our ship steamed away from that bleak
coast, our anchor hoisted in for the last time, with our thoughts
divided between Nordenskjöld safely homeward bound and ourselves headed
at last into the unknown polar seas.

As Collins rolled the notes solemnly out from the little organ and the
rough voices of our sailors echoed the words, never before had I seen
men at sea so deeply stirred by that heartfelt appeal,

    “Oh, hear us when we cry to Thee,
     For those in peril on the sea!”




CHAPTER VIII


For the first time, ice now began to be a factor in our cruise. We
had noted a little along the Siberian shore churned by the surf when
the whaleboat attempted a landing off Serdze Kamen, but now as we
stood away from the coast, pack ice to the westward making out from
Koliutchin Bay bothered the ship noticeably, with loose ice in large
chunks bobbing about in the waves, necessitating constant conning by
the officer of the watch to avoid trouble. Finally at 10 P.M., with ice
growing heavier, while our course to Wrangel Land lay N.W. by N., the
captain changed course to N.E. for a few hours to take her out of it,
and then having come to open water, back to N.W., on which course under
sail and steam we stood on through the night and all next day with
beautifully clear cold weather attending us.

About a hundred miles to the southward of where Wrangel Land should
be, we made out the ice pack once more, extending this time from dead
ahead uninterruptedly around to the westward as far as eye could see.
Confronted thus by the solid pack across our path, there was nothing
for it but to head the _Jeannette_ off to the eastward, away from our
objective, skirting as closely as we dared that pack on our port side,
solid ice now seven feet thick!

Meantime a fine southeast breeze sprang up and to this we made all
sail, heading northeast with wind abeam and the ice dead to leeward,
while from the crow’s-nest, grizzled old Dunbar, our ex-whaler
ice-pilot, closely scanned the pack for any lead of open water through
it going northward, but he found not the slightest sign of one.

On that course we were constantly increasing our distance from Wrangel
Land instead of diminishing it, so De Long after morosely regarding for
some time the fine wake which our six-knot speed was churning up in the
icy water astern, finally ordered me when darkness fell to stop the
engines, bank fires, and save the coal, letting her go under sail alone
for the night.

Late in the first watch then, the engines were secured, the fires
heavily banked in the boilers to burn as little coal as possible, and
stocky Bartlett, fireman in charge of the watch, instructed to keep
them so. With all secured below I came up on deck, for a few minutes
before turning in looking off to leeward across the black water at the
vague loom of that solid ice pack fringing the near horizon.

Eight bells struck, the watch was changed, the men relieved tumbling
below to the forecastle with great alacrity for in spite of the
southeast breeze, there was a sharp chill in the cutting wind as the
_Jeannette_, with all sails drawing, plunged ahead at full speed.
Deeply laden and well heeled over by a stiff beam wind, we were running
with the lee scuppers awash, and the cold sea threatened momentarily to
flood over our low bulwark. What with the icy water and the chilly air,
the contrast with the warmth of the boiler room I had just left was
too much for me. With a final glance overhead at our straining cordage
and taut canvas and a wave to Dunbar who with dripping whiskers dimly
visible in the binnacle light on the bridge above me, had just taken
over the watch on deck, I ducked aft into the poop and wearily slid
into my bunk.

On the starboard tack with the wind freshening, the _Jeannette_ stood
on through the night. One bell struck. In the perfunctory routine drone
of the sea, the lookout reported the running lights burning bright and
the report was gravely acknowledged by Mr. Dunbar, though we might
just as well have saved our lamp oil, for what ship was there besides
ourselves in that vast polar solitude to whom those lights, steadily
burning in the darkness, might mean anything in the way of warning?

Nevertheless we were underway. Habit and the law of the sea are strong,
so on deck the incongruity of the reports struck no one. Hans Erichsen,
a huge Dane posted in the bow as lookout, turned his eyes lazily from
the gleaming lights in the rigging toward the bowsprit once more,
gradually accustoming them again to the darkness ahead.

And then hoarse and loud, nothing perfunctory this time about the call,
came Erichsen’s cry,

“Ice ho! Dead ahead and on the weather bow!”

On the silent _Jeannette_, that cry, cutting through the whistling of
the wind and the creaking of the rigging, echoed aft in the poop to
bring up in the twinkling of an eye, tumbling half clad out of their
bunks, Captain De Long, Mr. Chipp, and all the other officers.

“Hard alee!” roared Dunbar to the helmsman, desperately endeavoring to
bring her into the wind to avoid a collision, for with ice alee, ahead,
on the weather bow, there was no way out except to tack.

But the _Jeannette_, heavily laden and with a trim by the stern as she
then was, had never successfully come about except with the help of her
engines. And now the fires were banked! But she must tack or crash!

“All hands!”

Through the darkness echoed the rush of feet tumbling up from the
forecastle, racing to man sheets and braces, the shrill piping of the
bosun, hoarse orders, then a bedlam of curses and the howling of dogs
as all over the deck, men and animals collided in the night.

In response to her hard over rudder, the _Jeannette’s_ bow swung slowly
to starboard while from ahead, plainly audible now on our deck, came
the roar of the waves breaking high on the solid pack.

Would she answer her helm and tack?

Breathlessly we waited while with jibs and headsails eased and spanker
hauled flat aft, the _Jeannette_ rounded sluggishly toward the wind and
the open sea and away from that terrible ice.

Then she stopped swinging, hung “in irons.” With our useless sails
flapping wildly and no steam to save us, helplessly we watched with
eyes straining through the darkness as the _Jeannette_ drove broadside
to leeward, straight for the ice pack!




CHAPTER IX


We struck with a shivering crash that shook the _Jeannette_ from keel
to main truck, and hung there with yards banging violently. Lucky for
us now, that nineteen inch thickness of heavily reenforced side and the
stout backing of those new trusses below—that impact would have stove
in the side of any ordinary vessel!

But though we had survived that first smashing blow, we were in grave
danger. Impotent with sails and rudder to claw off that ice bank, we
lay there in a heavy seaway, rolling and grinding against the jagged
shelf on which the wind was pushing us.

That put it up to the black gang. I rushed below into the fireroom.

“Bartlett!” I yelled. “Wide open on your dampers! Accelerate that
draft!”

“Sharvell! Iversen!” I sang out sharply to my two coalheavers. “Lively
with the slice bars! Cut those banked fires to pieces! Get ’em blazing!”

For thirty anxious minutes we fought before our two Scotch boilers
with slice bars, rakes, and shovels to raise steam, while through our
solid sides as we toiled below the water line, we heard the groaning
and the crunching of the ice digging into our planking and from above
the slapping of the sails, the howling of the dogs, and the kicks and
curses of the seamen still struggling futilely to get the ship to claw
off to windward.

At last with fires roaring, the needle of our pressure gauge started
to climb toward the popping point; I reported we were ready with the
engines.

De Long doused all sail; under steam alone with our helm hard aport
and propeller turning over at half speed, we swung our bow at last to
starboard into the wind and slowly eased away from the pack, decidedly
thankful to get clear with no more damage than a terrible gouging of
our stout elm planking. And under steam alone for the rest of the night
we stood on dead slow nearly to windward between east and southeast,
keeping that ice pack a respectable distance on our port hand till dawn
came and with it, a fog!

For the next few watches, we played tag with the ice-fields, standing
off when the fog came in, standing in when the fog lifted, searching
for an open lead to the northward. At one time during this period, the
fog thinned to show to our intense astonishment, off to the southeast a
bark under full sail, a whaler undoubtedly, standing wisely enough to
the southward away from the ice, but so far off, anxious as we were not
to lose any northing while we sought an open lead, we never ran down
and spoke him.

Soon, a little regretfully, we lost him in the fog, the last vessel
we ever saw, homeward bound no doubt and a missed opportunity for us
to send a farewell message home before we entered the ice-pack around
Wrangel Land.

Finally with nothing but ice in sight except to the southeast, De Long
decided to try a likely looking lead opening to leeward, toward the
northwest. So with the captain in the crow’s-nest and the ice-pilot
perched on the topsail yard, we entered the lead, Lieutenant Chipp
on the bridge conning the ship as directed from aloft. Cautiously we
proceeded in a general northwesterly direction up that none too wide
lead of water with broken ice-fields fairly close aboard us now on both
sides, for some seven hours till late afternoon, when simultaneously
the lead suddenly narrowed and the fog thickened so much that we
stopped, banked fires, and put out an ice-anchor to a nearby floe.

Chilled, cramped, and dead-tired from his long day in the crow’s-nest,
De Long laid down from aloft and promptly crawled into his bunk, while
the fog continuing, we lay to our ice-anchor till next day.

For the first time on our cruise, the temperature that night dropped
below freezing, with the odd result that by morning between the fog and
the freezing weather, our rigging was a mass of shimmering snow and
frost, magically turning the _Jeannette_ into a fairy ship, a lovely
sight with her every stay and shroud shining and sparkling in the
early dawn, and the running rigging a swaying crystal web of jewels
glistening against the sky.

But as the fog still hung on, and we consequently could not move, I
am afraid our captain, more interested in progress northward than in
beauty, gave scant heed, and it was left to Ambler and me, being early
on deck, really to drink in the soul-satisfying loveliness of that
scene.

Some new ice, a thin film only, made around the ship during the
night, the weather being calm and the surface of our lead therefore
undisturbed and free to freeze, but it was insignificant in thickness
compared to the pack ice surrounding us, which seemed everywhere to be
at least seven feet in depth, of which thickness some two feet were
above water and the rest below, with some hummocks here and there
pushed up above the smooth pack to a height of six feet perhaps.

By afternoon, the fog cleared enough for us to haul in our ice-anchor,
spread fires and get underway along our lead, which running now in a
northeasterly direction we followed for two hours, poking and ramming
our way between drifting floes. Then to our delighted surprise, we
emerged into the open sea again, open, that is, between east and north
only, with ice filling the horizon in all other directions.

With some searoom to work in, we speeded the engines and headed north,
where we soon passed a drifting tree, torn up by the roots, an odd bit
of flotsam to encounter in those waters, but which as it must have
come from the south encouraged us since it lent some weight, however
slight, to the Japanese Current theory about which we were beginning to
entertain serious doubts. But we had little time to speculate on this,
for soon from the lookout came the cry,

“Land ho!”

Sure enough, bearing northwest, apparently forty miles off and much
distorted by mirage, was land which from our position and its bearings
we judged to be Herald Island. This island I must hasten to explain was
so named, not after the _New York Herald_ whose owner, Mr. Bennett, was
financing our expedition, but after H.M.S. _Herald_, whose captain,
Kellett, had discovered and landed on that island thirty years before,
in 1849.

Immediately from alow and aloft all hands were scanning the island,
through binoculars, through telescopes, and with the naked eye.
There was much animated discussion among us as to its distance,
but regardless of that we could do nothing to close on it, for the
ice-field lay between. So as night fell, we merely steamed in circles
at dead slow speed, just clear of the pack.

Day broke fine and crisp with a light northerly breeze off the ice.
Picking the most promising lead toward Herald Island, we pushed the
_Jeannette_ into it, and for two hours amidst drifting floes we made
our way with no great trouble, when, to our dismay, we began to meet
new ice in the lead, from one to two inches in thickness. For another
two hours, we pushed along through this, our steel-clad stem easily
breaking a path through which we drove our hull, with the thin ice
scratching and gouging our elm doubling, when we came at last smack up
against the thickest pack we had yet seen, some ten to fifteen feet of
solid ice. This, needless to say, brought us up short. Since we could
do nothing else, we ran out our ice-anchor to the floe ahead, while we
waited hopefully for some shift in the pack to make us a new opening.

With clearer weather, several times during the morning as we lay in
the ice, we made out distinctly not only Herald Island but other land
beyond, above, and also to the southwest of it, which from everything
we had been told, should be part of that Wrangel Land on which we
were banking so much to afford us a base for our sledging operations
toward the Pole. Consequently we searched the distant outlines of this
continent with far greater interest than we had bestowed on the nearer
profile of Herald Island, but to no conclusion. Danenhower, Chipp, and
De Long, all experienced seamen, strained their eyes through glasses,
scanning what could be seen of the coast of Wrangel Land, but so far
even from agreeing on its remoteness, looking across ice instead of
water so upset their habits of judging, that their estimates of its
distance varied all the way from forty to one hundred miles, while De
Long even doubted whether what he saw beyond Herald Island was land
at all but simply a mirage. Being only an engineer, I took no part in
these discussions, more concerned myself in staring at the unyielding
edges of the nearby floes and wondering, if our navigation for the next
few weeks was to consist mostly of traversing leads filled with such
floating ice cakes, how long we could hope to go before an ice floe
sucked in under our counter knocked off a propeller blade, and how long
a time would elapse before our four spare blades were all used up.
But there was no great occasion for such worry on my part. Not till
afternoon could we move at all, and then only for a couple of hours,
when once more we were brought up by solid ice ahead and with banked
fires again anchored to a floe, called it a day, and laid below for
supper.

Supper was an unusually somber meal. Such an early season encounter
with the ice-fields and at so low a latitude, was a sad blow to our
hopes of exploration. De Long, at the head of the table, served out
silently as Tong Sing placed the dishes before him; I, on his left,
carved the mutton and aided him at serving—to Chipp first, then to
the others on both sides of the table down to Danenhower, who as mess
treasurer sat at the foot of the table opposite the captain. Potatoes,
stewed dried apples, bread, butter, and tea made up the rest of our
unpretentious meal, the simplicity of which perhaps still further
emphasized our situation and put a damper on any conversation. Only the
shuffling of the Chinese steward’s feet on the deck as he padded round
the little wardroom with the plates broke the quiet.

De Long, brooding over the ship’s situation, was gradually struck by
the absence of conversation and its implications. More I think to make
conversation than in the hope of gaining any information, he picked
out the ice-pilot on my left, sawing earnestly away at his mutton, and
asked him,

“Well, Mr. Dunbar, do you think we’ll get through this lead to Herald
Island?”

Dunbar, absorbed like the rest of us in his thoughts, surprised me by
the speed, so unusual for him, with which without even looking up he
snapped out his reply,

“No, cap’n, we won’t!” Then more slowly as he turned his grizzled face
toward the head of the table, he added vehemently, “And what’s more,
while God’s giving us the chance, I’d wind her in that little water
hole astern of us and head out of this ice back to open water before
the bottom drops out of the thermometer and we’re frozen in here for a
full due!”

Astonished by the heat of this unexpected reply, De Long looked from
the old whaler, who in truth had hurled a lance into the very heart of
each man’s thoughts, to the rest of us, all suddenly straightened up
by the thrust.

“And why, Mr. Dunbar?” in spite of a pronounced flush he asked mildly.
“Where can we do better, may I ask?”

“Further east, off Prince Patrick’s Land, to the north’ard of the coast
of North America,” replied Dunbar shortly. “A whaler’ll stay in open
water further north’n this over on the Alaska side most any time; the
current sets that way toward Greenland, not this side toward Siberia.”

De Long calmly shook his head.

“No use, pilot; we’re not whaling and we’ll not go east. That would
take us away from Wrangel Land, and sledging north along the coasts
of Wrangel Land’s our only hope for working into the real north from
Behring Strait. No, we can’t do it. We’ll have to take our chances
here.”

Dunbar, his suggestion overruled, made no reply, masking his
disappointment by hunching a little lower over his plate and hacking
away once more at the chunk of mutton before him. And as suddenly as it
had flared up, all conversation ceased.

September 6 dawned, for us on the _Jeannette_ a day to which we often
looked back with mingled feelings. During the night our water lead
froze up behind us. In the morning, as far as the eye could see in
every direction now was only ice—no water, no open leads anywhere.
A fog hung over the sea, blotting out Herald Island, but a light
northerly wind gave some promise of clearing the atmosphere later on.

We gathered at breakfast in the cabin, a somber group. Under way for a
week since leaving Cape Serdze Kamen, we had made but 240 miles to the
north, to reach only lat. 71° 30′ N., a point easily to be exceeded by
any vessel all year round in the Atlantic. But here we were, completely
surrounded by ice. Was this the exceptionally open Arctic summer, so
free of ice, that in Unalaska we had been informed awaited us?

Danenhower, loquacious as always, broke the silence, observing to no
one in particular,

“This damned coffee’s even worse than usual, all water and no coffee
beans. Ah Sam’s had time enough to learn by now. Can’t anyone persuade
that Chink to put _some_ coffee in the pot? What’s he saving it for?”

“Maybe the sight of all that ice discourages him,” observed Ambler.
“Perhaps he thinks we’re in for a long hard winter and he’s got to
save. I reckon he’s right too, for that ice pack sure looks to me as if
it never has broken up and turned to water yet.”

“Right, surgeon.” Captain De Long at the head of the table, busily
engaged in ladling out a dish of hominy, looked up at Ambler and nodded
pessimistically,

“And what’s worse for us, it looks to me as if it never will, unless
someone whistles up a heavy gale to break up the pack.”

Chipp, uncomplainingly engaged in drinking down his portion of the
insipid coffee, took objection at this.

“Don’t try that, captain! In any gale that’d break up _this_ pack the
pack’d break the _Jeannette_ up in the process. No, let Nature take her
course melting that ice; it may be slower but it’s safer.”

“Come down to earth!” broke in Danenhower. “Let’s leave the pack a
minute; it’ll be there for a while yet. I was talking about coffee.
Hasn’t anybody in this mess got influence enough to get Ah Sam to pack
a little coffee in the pot for all this water to work on?”

“Well,” grinned Collins, seeing a chance to slip in a pun, “you’re the
navigator, Dan. Why don’t you try shooting that Celestial’s equator?
That ought to stir him up.”

Collins, chuckling happily, glanced round for approval.

Danenhower twisted his broad shoulders in his chair, directed a blank
stare at Collins.

“Huh? If that’s another one of your puns, Mr. Meteorologist, what’s the
point?”

Collins stopped laughing and looked pained.

“Don’t you see it, Dan?” he asked. “Why, that one’s rich! Celestial,
equator, and you’re a navigator. Now, do you get it?”

Danenhower, determined with the rest of us to squelch Collins’ puns,
looking as innocent of understanding as before, replied flatly,

“No! I’m too dumb, I guess. Where’s the point?”

“Why, Ah Sam’s a Chinaman, isn’t he?”

“If he’s not, then I’m one,” agreed Danenhower. “So far I’m with you.”

“Well, all Chinamen are sons of Heaven, aren’t they? So that makes
him a Celestial. See? And you’re a navigator so you shoot the stars;
they’re celestial too. And anybody’s stomach’s his equator, isn’t it?
You see, it all hangs together fine. Now do you get it?” inquired
Collins anxiously.

“I’m damned if I see any connection in all this rigmarole of yours
with my attempts at getting better coffee,” muttered Danenhower. “Does
anybody?” He looked round.

Solemnly first De Long, then Chipp, Ambler and I all shook our heads,
gazing blandly at Collins for further elucidation as to what the joke
might be.

Collins looked from one to another of us, then in disgust burst out,

“The farther all of you get from San Francisco, the weaker grow your
intellects!” He leaned back sulkily. “By the time we get to the Pole,
you won’t know your own names. Why, that one’s good! They’d see it in
New York right off. I’ve half a mind to try it out on that Indian,
Alexey. I’ll bet even he sees it!”

“Why don’t you try it on Ah Sam instead, then?” queried Danenhower,
rising. “If our cook sees it, there’s hope. Maybe next you can make
him see why he ought to put some coffee berries in the pot when
he makes coffee, and that’ll be something even my thick skull can
understand!” He jerked on his peacoat, lifted his bulky form from his
chair, and strode to the door. “I’m going on deck. I’m too dumb, I
guess, to see the points of Collins’ puns. But maybe if I’m not too
blind yet, I can see the ice, anyway.”

With a wink at Ambler, our navigator vanished. It seemed to be working;
perhaps we might yet cure Collins of his continuous stream of puns, for
most of them were atrocious, and anyway, having now had a chance to get
acquainted at close range with punning, I heartily agreed with whoever
it was, Samuel Johnson I think, in averring that a pun was the lowest
form of wit. With us the case was serious—here with the long Arctic
night approaching, locking us within the narrow confines of our vessel,
we were shipmates with a punster and no escape except to break him of
it!

I rose also and went out on deck, the while Collins turned his
attention to Dunbar, trying to get him, who also knew something
of navigation, to admit that he at least saw the point in the
meteorologist’s play on words, but I am afraid he picked the wrong
person, for Dunbar’s grim visage remained wholly unresponsive.

Out on deck, clad in a heavy peacoat with a sealskin cap jammed tightly
down over my bald spot, for the temperature was down to 26° F., I
looked around. A distant view was impossible because of fog. Nearby
were a few disconnected pools of water covered by thin ice, but short
of miraculously jumping the ship from one pool to another over the
intervening floes, there seemed no way for us to make progress. I
glanced down our side. For several feet above the waterline, the paint
was gone and our elm doubling was everywhere scraped bright with here
and there a deep gouge in the wood from some jagged floe.

De Long joined me at the rail, looked despondently off through the
mist, his pipe clenched between his teeth, the while he puffed
vigorously away at it.

“A grand country for any man to learn patience in, chief,” he remarked
glumly. “Since we can’t push through the pack to Wrangel Land over
there on the western horizon, I’ve been hoping and praying at least
to get the ship in to Herald Island to make winter quarters before we
were frozen in, but look what’s happened!” He gazed over the bulwark at
the nearby hummocks. “Yesterday I hoped today would make us an opening
through to the land; today I hope tomorrow’ll do it. And tomorrow—?”
He shrugged his shoulders and left me, to climb our frosted ratlines
to the crow’s-nest on the chance that from that elevation he might see
over the fog. This turned out a futile effort, since not till one p.m.
when the fog finally lifted, were we able to move.

With the weather clearing, I got up steam while De Long, armed with
binoculars, perched himself once more in the crow’s-nest, Dunbar again
straddled the fore topsail yard, Chipp took the bridge, and we got
underway for as odd a bit of navigation as all my years of going to sea
have ever witnessed.

To start with, the only possible opening was on the port bow, but with
heavy ice ahead and astern, there was insufficient room to maneuver
the ship by backing to head her for the opening. So over the side went
Bosun Cole and half the starboard watch, dragging with them one end of
a six-inch hawser. Selecting a sizeable ice hummock a few shiplengths
off on the port side which gave a proper lead to our forecastle bitts,
Cole expertly threw a clove hitch in the hawser round the hummock,
using the ice, so to speak, as a bollard; while on deck, Quartermaster
Nindemann heaved in on the ship end of that line with our steam winch,
warping the bow smartly round to port till it pointed fair for the
opening, when Chipp gave me the signal,

“Slow ahead!”

With a few turns of the propeller, we pushed our bow into the crack
between the floes. After that, with the line cast off, it was a case
of full out on the throttle. With connecting rods, cranks, and pistons
flying madly round, we certainly churned up a wild wake in that narrow
lead wedging those cakes apart while the _Jeannette_ squeezed herself
in between the ice floes.

And so it went for the next three hours, the captain and the ice-pilot
directing from aloft, while in the engine room we nearly tore the
engines off their bedplates and the smoking thrust block off its
foundation with all our sudden changes from “Full ahead” to “Full
astern” and everything in between, while the _Jeannette_ rammed,
squeezed, backed, and butted her way through the ice, sometimes relying
only on the engines, sometimes only on Jack Cole and his mates plodding
along on the floes ahead of the ship dragging that six-inch hawser and
occasionally taking a turn with it on some hummock to help warp the
ship into position for ramming. Our solid bow and thick sides took a
terrific beating that watch as we hammered our way through pack ice
deeper than our keel, but everything held, and when we finally ceased
a little after four, it was not from any fear of the consequences to
the _Jeannette_, but only because the fog came down again, blotting out
everything.

Once more we ran out our ice-anchor, and with that secured, recalled
aboard the warping party. I came up out of the engine room, having
taken enough out of our engines in a few hours to drive us halfway to
China. Chipp, Danenhower, and the captain all were gathered on the
bridge over my head.

“Well, Dan, how much’ve we made good toward Herald Island?” I enquired
eagerly of Danenhower.

The navigator’s thickset brows contracted dejectedly as he peered down
at me over the after rail.

“Maybe a mile, chief,” he answered.

Maybe a mile? And to get that mile, keeping up a full head of steam
all the time for ramming, I had been burning coal furiously these past
three hours. A hundred miles of progress at that rate and our coal
would be completely gone. I turned questioningly toward the captain,
asked,

“I suppose it’s bank fires now and save coal, hey, brother?”

Before answering De Long looked off through the fog. Ice ahead, ice
astern, ice on both beams, with only tiny disconnected patches of water
showing here and there among the floes. He shook his head.

“No, chief, we won’t bank this time. Let your fires die out altogether;
save every pound of coal you can. If a good chance comes to move, I’ll
give you ample time to get steam up again.”

And so we left it. As the day ended, the _Jeannette_, hemmed in by ice,
lay an inert ship, unable to move in any direction, as a matter of form
only, held to an ice-anchor; while below, after securing the engines, I
reduced the watch to one man only, young Sharvell, coalheaver, left to
tend the boilers while the fires died out in them.

The temperature, which never during that day rose above the freezing
point, started to drop toward evening and soon fell to 23°. The result
was inevitable. Young ice, making during the night over all patches of
open water, had by morning completely cemented together the old pack.

One look over the side in the midwatch satisfied me there would be no
call for the engines next day, nor unless something startling happened,
for many a day. All the steam I could put behind my engines could not
stir the _Jeannette_ one inch from her bed, and as for warping her
now with our winch, our stoutest hawsers would be about as useful as
threads in tearing her from that grip of ice.

And so September 6, 1879, ended with the helpless _Jeannette_ solidly
frozen into the Arctic ice pack.




CHAPTER X


That freezing into immobility of the _Jeannette_ in so low a latitude,
fell like an icy shower on the spirits of our wardroom mess, and from
that day sociability vanished. Already Dunbar and Newcomb were not on
speaking terms; Collins regarded me sullenly and the rest of the mess
hardly less so; and the captain, who on leaving St. Michael’s, had
after an unpleasant disagreement with Mr. Collins in the wardroom,
decided that he should be more punctilious and less informal in his
intercourse with us, now withdrew into his official shell completely.
For myself, this worried me not at all, for I well knew the effect that
responsibility has on most skippers, and particularly realized (as De
Long seemed finally also to have done) that for a captain not much
senior in years nor in rank to most of his officers, close comradeship
is incompatible with the maintenance of proper respect and authority.

However, if we had no sociability to cheer us up, we soon had plenty
of other matters to make us forget the lack. The ice pack which held
us was evidently under way, headed northward, and we had not been in
the pack a day before the pressure, nipping us on the beam, shoved the
_Jeannette_ up on a submerged tongue of ice projecting somewhere below
our port bilge, giving us a list to starboard of over 5° and causing
some inconvenience in getting about. As if this were not enough, after
a few watches to our great uneasiness our list suddenly increased to
9°, and incidentally jammed our rudder hard starboard.

Here was cause enough for real worry. A permanent list of 9° is in
itself a great nuisance in getting about on a ship even in the
tropics, but now with the temperature below freezing and the decks
slippery with ice, we were in a bad way to keep footing. And if the
list got worse and carried away our rudder or laid us on our beam ends
as it threatened to do, what then?

We promptly bestirred ourselves. Under Lieutenant Chipp’s direction,
improvised torpedoes made of kegs full of black powder were planted in
the ice under our stern, but with no results. In spite of an all day
struggle, not a torpedo could we explode. To Chipp’s intense chagrin,
every fuse we had proved defective and would not burn. And an attempt
to fire the charges with that newfangled device, electricity, also
failed, apparently because our current was so weak it all leaked away
through our non-insulated copper wires into the ice, leaving not enough
at the terminals to set off our torpedoes.

To aggravate us while we toiled to straighten up our ship, we had an
extraordinarily clear day, giving a splendid view across the ice of
Herald Island off to the westward, with far beyond it a distinct range
of peaks—Wrangel Land which, when we set out on our expedition we had
fondly expected to spend the winter exploring. Frozen in, Heaven only
knows how far away from it, we gritted our teeth and worked in the
freezing weather to explode those torpedoes but to no purpose. Night
fell and left us still in that perilous position.

Our fourth day in the ice found us still struggling to right the ship.
The torpedoes were abandoned. We resorted to more primitive methods,
those used centuries ago on sailing ships to careen for cleaning the
hulls.

Jack Cole, bosun, and a gang of seamen swarmed up the icy shrouds,
rigged a couple of heavy tackles at the mastheads, one at the fore, the
other at the main, and secured their lower ends to ice claws hooked
under the thick floes on our port side.

Then to the hoarse cry of the bosun,

“Yo, heave!” our entire crew, stretched out along the falls, lay back
and foot by foot hove them well taut, till our port shrouds came slack
and the captain signalled to belay hauling lest something carry away.
But even under this terrific strain on our masts tending to roll us to
port, our vessel, gripped firmly by the ice, righted herself not an
inch.

De Long, regarding with keen disappointment our strained cordage and
bent masts, had still one more shot in the locker. Torpedoes had
failed, careening had failed, but we had yet an ice saw. He motioned to
Alfred Sweetman, our tall English carpenter, standing at the base of
the mainmast dubiously eyeing the overstrained crosstrees above him.

“Rig that ice saw, Sweetman!”

The carpenter responded hurriedly. While Jack Cole braced back the
main yard so that its port end plumbed our quarter, Sweetman and his
mates broke out from the hold our ice saw, a huge steel blade twenty
feet long and broad in proportion, its cutting edge studded with coarse
teeth that would have done credit to any full-grown shark.

Under Nindemann’s direction, the port watch went over the side armed
with pick-axes and crowbars and started to break a hole for the saw
through the ice on our quarter, while Cole and Sweetman swung the saw
from a tackle at the yardarm, weighted its lower end with a small kedge
anchor, and then awaited the completion of the hole through the floe.
They had several hours to wait, for not till the gang on the pack had
dug down fifteen feet did a crowbar go through into the open water
below, which, gushing unexpectedly upward into the hole, soaked the
diggers with freezing spray and sent them madly scrambling up the rough
sides of their excavation.

Fifteen feet of ice! De Long’s mustaches drooped for a full due when
Nindemann reported that. Only mid-September, and already fast in ice
extending two feet below our keel! A gigantic block of ice to try to
cut, but there was nothing for it but to saw away if we were ever to
right our ship. Fortunately our saw was at least long enough.

The bosun plumbed the hole with the kedge anchor suspended from the
yardarm, hauled everything two-blocks, and then,

“Let go!” he roared.

Down came the kedge with a run, crashed into the thin remaining
ice-floor of the hole, broke through, carrying the lower end of the saw
with it, and we were ready.

Then commenced four hours of strenuous labor. Sweetman and Nindemann,
armed with crowbars, down on the pack guided the sides of the saw blade
for a fore and aft cut, while on deck the starboard watch stretched out
along the fall, alternately heaved and slacked away, on the upstroke
lifting the weight of both saw and kedge anchor, on the downstroke
depending on the weight of the kedge only to drag the blade down again,
while on both strokes the steel teeth rasped and shrieked and tortured
our ears as they tore into the solid ice.

But it was useless. In spite of Sweetman’s skilled guidance and
Nindemann’s brawny shoulders, it was next to impossible to keep that
blade going straight against such thick ice, for the bottom of the
saw being so far below them, actually guiding it was wholly out of
question, with the result that on nearly every stroke the saw jammed in
the cut. After half a day’s arduous labor the net results were a badly
bent saw, hardly a fathom of cut ice, and such a flow of sulphurous
language both on deck and on the ice pack from those handling the saw
that I doubt not it may well have melted more ice than we cut.

So at eight bells, when the gang over the side knocked off for mess, De
Long, ruefully contemplating the twisted saw temporarily hanging in the
clear at the yardarm, and the insignificant length of the cut compared
with the stretch of ice along our hull which had yet to be severed,
gave up and silently motioned Cole to unrig everything. With alacrity,
all hands as soon as this was done, scrambled below to the forecastle.

A few minutes later, in the comparative warmth of the wardroom (50°
instead of the 16° out on deck) with some difficulty on account of the
slope, I eased myself into my chair near the head of the table on the
captain’s left, silently bracing my plate with my knife to keep it from
sliding away to starboard while Tong Sing ladled out the soup, hardly
more than half filling my plate lest the steaming liquid overflow the
low side.

“Well, mates,” observed Danenhower, at the low end of the table,
contemplating his scanty portion, “such is life in the Arctic! We’re
in for this list all winter. I’m glad I don’t like soup anyway. Stew’s
more in my line.”

“Better see Ah Sam, then, Dan,” I advised, “and make sure he thickens
that stew enough to insure a safe angle of repose, or your stew’ll flow
away like the soup.”

“Don’t worry, boys; I’ll fix it,” broke in our executive officer, Mr.
Chipp. “If we can’t right our ship, I can right this mess table anyhow.
I’ll have the carpenter saw a foot off each of the legs on the high end
and that’ll about compensate for the heel and level it off for us.”

“Chipp, I’m ashamed of you,” I objected. “Your cure’s worse’n the
disease. That’ll fix the slope, true enough, but what’ll the skipper
and you and I do? Shortening these legs a foot will put this end of the
table in our laps. How’ll we eat then; cross-legged on the deck like
a lot of Japs? Maybe you can, you must be used to it, being just back
from there! But I’m afraid I’m too stiff in the joints to flemish down
my legs properly!”

Chipp, who had just come back from the Orient to join the _Jeannette_,
saw the point, considered a moment, then looked speculatively down the
table to the low end where sat the mess treasurer and the juniors in
the mess.

“You’re right, chief. That’ll never do; there’s too much rank up here
to monkey with this end of the table. Instead, I’ll have Sweetman level
off by adding a foot to those table legs on the starboard end.”

Immediately Danenhower, facing the captain from the low end of the
table, flared up.

“And what do you expect _me_ to do then, Mr. Chipp? Get myself a high
chair like a damned infant so I can reach the table while I eat? And
wear a bib too, maybe? Forget it!”

Chipp, squelched from both ends of the table, shrugged his shoulders.

“Well, I give up, mates! Anchor your soup plates anyway you can then.
But don’t be blaming me if your chow finishes in the scuppers instead
of down your gullets.” He relapsed into silence.

The meal proceeded with difficulty. Tong Sing, bending low over each
man’s shoulder in succession, sought to maintain his grip on the
sloping deck the while he tried to level off the platter of salt pork
long enough for each to help himself, but it was evident that it was
only a matter of time till one of us got the contents of that platter
in his lap. After two near accidents, avoided only by skillful juggling
of the platter by the impassive Tong Sing, the captain motioned the
steward to quit serving and put the dish down before him.

“Enough, Charley. Set that platter down right here. Lend a hand,
Melville, at passing those plates, and I’ll serve out myself. We’ll
have to let formality in serving go by the board till spring’s here
and we’re on an even keel again. Let’s have your plate now, Dan,” he
called, as the relieved steward deposited the heaping dish of pork
before the captain and padded off to the galley for the potatoes.

“Spring? When does spring arrive around these parts?” asked Danenhower
irrelevantly, passing his plate.

“God knows, I don’t!” replied Chipp. “By June, I hope though. Why, Dan?”

“By June, eh?” The navigator counted on his fingers. “Nine months yet.
And nine months more of having to navigate these careened decks is
going to be tough on the legs. I’ll have a permanent limp in my left
leg long before that, trying to keep erect.”

Dr. Ambler seated in the middle of the table looked at Danenhower,
nodded seriously, and in his quiet Virginian drawl observed,

“You’re right, Dan. And since we can’t right the ship, we’ll have to
level off the crew. What Chipp just said gave me an idea. How about my
amputating a couple of inches from everybody’s left leg, just enough to
counteract the list? That’ll keep you all on an even keel.”

“Hah, hah!” roared Chipp, looking at the doctor in mock amazement. “For
a naval surgeon, my dear Ambler, your lack of seamanship pains me!
Shorten our left legs, indeed? That’s all very well for a starboard
list when a man’s going forward, but where’ll he be when he comes about
and wants to go aft? Worse than ever, with his short flipper on the
wrong side! Not for me, doctor. I’ll reef my legs myself on whichever
side’s necessary. Your idea’s worse than mine!”

“I’m sunk,” admitted Ambler with a grin. “So that won’t work after all!
And it looked such a grand scheme with a little easy surgery on the
crew to avoid having to operate on all that ice!”

“If we stay here long enough,” observed Newcomb, “according to that new
theory which my fellow naturalist, that great English scientist Darwin,
recently advanced, Nature will accommodate us to our environment. The
survival of the fittest, you know.”

“Well, ‘Bugs,’ that means we’ll all ultimately become polar bears or
perish,” commented Ambler. “And since I don’t look with pleasure to
doing either, let’s hope you and your biology are both wrong.”

By this time, fortunately all were served, and in the ensuing attack
on the salt pork, conversation languished. But in spite of the
badinage about our situation and the half-humorous remedies proposed
to alleviate the nuisance of forever battling the sloping decks in
working, the sloping tables in eating, and even the sloping bunks when
we tried to sleep, it was evident that in the back of everyone’s mind
was a lurking fear of what next the ice had in store for us. And the
futility of our efforts in combating the ice pack were now too plain
to all of us to sustain any further hope of effecting in the slightest
degree any position our ship might assume, let alone her movements.

For some days we drifted impotently with the pack toward the northwest.
With broken ice under pressure piling up along our high side and
jamming our rudder hard against the pintles, the captain (who inwardly
had been hoping for a series of September gales to come along and break
up the pack and free us) at last reluctantly gave the order to unship
it, which task with great difficulty on account of the thick ice, Cole
and Sweetman finally succeeded in accomplishing, tricing the rudder
up to the davits across the stern. So the end of the first week found
us a rudderless ship moving at the whim of the ice pack, all chance
of exploration gone, stopped at latitude 71° North, a latitude which
had easily been reached in these same waters twenty years before by
a sailing ship. And gnawing bitterly at our captain’s soul was the
knowledge that till summer came to free us, in spite of steam or sail,
the _Jeannette_ Polar Expedition must drift idly with the pack, so far
from the Pole as to be the laughing stock of the world when it became
known, the while we consumed our supplies, burned up our coal, and wore
out our bodies to no purpose.

Where was the pack taking us? Anxiously we daily watched the trend of
the driftlead dropped to the bottom through a hole in the ice under
our stern, then checked against occasional bearings of distant Herald
Island and the few astronomical observations Danenhower got through the
fogs. The navigator announced finally that we were drifting northwest
with the pack, at a rate of about two miles per _day_. Where would that
lead us? And when? By spring, to the shores of Wrangel Land perhaps,
the captain hoped, not overly optimistic apparently even for actual
realization of that prospect.

Meanwhile, I prepared for the worst below. To save coal, fires had
on the day the ice caught us, been allowed to die out under the
boilers. Now with our underwater hull practically sheathed in ice,
the cold below was increasing, and to avoid freezing boilers and
pipelines and bursting them as a result, it was necessary to free
everything of water, leaving boilers, pumps, and engines empty, dry,
and unfortunately as a consequence, unavailable for immediate service
if required. Not to have some steam up and his auxiliaries, at least,
ready for service, would irk any engineer. But to be even more helpless
below, not even to have boilers filled and ready to light off in an
emergency, gave me serious cause for worry. However, there was no way
out. Keeping the water warm in the boilers and lines meant keeping
fires alight which would consume precious fuel and leave us with
empty bunkers when the ice at last released us and we could steam
again. Keeping water in the boilers and lines without the fires, meant
freezing and bursting our lines and perhaps our boilers, leaving us
helpless to utilize the coal we had saved. One horn of that dilemma was
as bad as the other; was ever an engineer faced with a worse choice
of evils? The only way out was to be even more reckless, to empty
everything, save coal, avoid freezing, and trust to luck that in a
pinch somehow the boilers could be filled again with water, fired up,
and steam raised once more before it was too late.

And that I did. Lee, machinist, and Bartlett, fireman, who were acting
as my assistant engineers, turned to with their wrenches. Aided by
the rest of the black gang, Boyd, Lauterbach, Iversen, and Sharvell,
serving as a bucket brigade, they were soon busy breaking pipe joints,
draining out water, drying out the boilers, and finally assembling
everything as free of moisture as it was humanly possible to get it.

And that completed the job of reducing the _Jeannette_ to a helpless
hulk. No rudder with which to steer, no steam with which to move her
engines, she was more helpless even than Noah’s _Ark_, which indeed she
soon came to resemble when the portable deck house we brought with us
from San Francisco was finally erected.




CHAPTER XI


On the _Jeannette_, we settled down to spending the winter in the
ice pack. The first step was to turn loose on the ice all our dogs—a
proceeding greeted with yelps of joy from the dogs at no longer being
prisoners, and cheers from the men who foresaw not only the prospect
once again of living in some peace and safety, but also of keeping our
decks clean and shipshape. There was only one drawback. Some distance
from the ship we had planted bear-traps in the hope of varying our
menu with fresh meat. To our disgust, instead of bear, our first catch
was one of our best dogs, Smike, nipped by the foreleg between the
jaws of a trap. With some difficulty, Aneguin extricated the yelping
brute and the starboard wing of the bridge having been converted to a
dog hospital, Smike was turned in for repairs. Hardly had this been
done before a second dog, Kasmatka this time, sprang another trap and
Aneguin had two patients for his canine sickbay. This disturbed the
captain, who fearful of losing all our dogs with the sledging season
coming on, ordered the traps set out only at night when all the dogs
had been herded aboard.

Meanwhile De Long kept a watchful eye on Herald Island looming up in
the distance as we drifted with the ice to the northwest. Our skipper,
anxious to discover if the island contained any driftwood which might
serve us for fuel, or a possible harbor if by any chance the hoped-for
September gales broke up the pack and allowed us by steaming up again
to reach it, determined on exploring it while still it bore abeam,
apparently only five miles off. So on the captain’s orders, Chipp,
Alexey, and I made up an exploring party, taking a sledge, eight dogs,
and provisions for a week. We set off on the morning of September 13,
cheered by all the crew, and immediately I discovered something about
dog teams. Instead of my boyhood pictures of a dog team racing in full
cry over the snow with the Eskimo driver having nothing to do except to
snap a whip as he gracefully reclined on the sledge, there was chaos.
The dogs yelped and fought; the leaders battling in the rear, the rear
dogs in the center, the harness all atangle, and progress the last
thing apparently any dog was interested in. It took all our efforts to
untangle the mess and get underway, with Alexey whipping the dogs to
hold them in line, and Chipp and I behind pushing the sledge to get
it started and encourage the dogs. Fortunately for us, the going at
first was fair, with much young ice, still smooth and unbroken to ease
our path, but we soon ran into rough and broken floes, over which we
toiled for hours. In this wise we covered fifteen miles without Herald
Island appearing any closer when, to our dismay, a wide open water
lead blocked our path. From the edge of that gap we scanned the island
beyond, still five miles away but clearly visible through the frosty
air, to find that its shores were precipitous cliffs of rock, offering
no signs of a safe harbor even if we could have worked the _Jeannette_
inshore, while there was not the slightest evidence of vegetation or of
any driftwood which might ease our fuel problem.

Chipp and I considered the situation. Without a boat, it was folly to
attempt proceeding farther—we might, even if we managed to skirt this
lead and make a landing on the island, find our return cut off by other
leads and with our ship being carried to the northward by the drifting
ice, be left to starve on that barren rock. Reluctantly then we turned
back, but so slow was our progress over the rough ice pack we were
forced at last to camp on the ice for the night. It was not till nine
the next morning, which happened to be Sunday, that we sighted the
ship, a little glum at returning with nothing to show for our journey
except one small seal which Alexey had shot at the edge of the lead and
which we carried strapped down on the sledge.

Instead of the peaceful calm of a Sunday morning, however, I found
the ship in a turmoil. As we approached the stern with our sledge,
trudging wearily along in Alexey’s wake and watching eagerly the thin
column of smoke from the galley that to us meant just one thing—a hot
breakfast—someone on deck shouted,

“Bear!”

The next I knew, down the gangway onto the ice came the quartermaster,
Nindemann, a rifle in his hand, running in his stockinged feet as hard
as he could toward our stem. Sure enough, there galloping off past
the bow, was a big polar bear who quickly faded from view, but that
meant nothing as white bears naturally enough do not stand out long
against an ice background. A bear! Fresh meat instead of salt beef, if
we got him! But polar bears had a reputation for ferocity and there
was Nindemann, single-handed, going after one. What might not the
bear do to him among those hummocks? Chipp and I looked at each other
questioningly. Being somewhat ungainly and rather stout, I can hardly
say that Nature ever designed me for chasing bears, besides which,
having just tramped thirty miles across the broken pack, I hardly felt
equal to joining any bear hunts, and I was about to suggest we let the
Indian, Alexey, go in support, leaving us to struggle with the dogs,
when the problem was solved for us. Down the gangway, going four bells
in Nindemann’s wake came Danenhower, also flourishing a rifle, and in
no time at all after that, Collins and Newcomb, both armed, shot down
the gangplank also and were off on the run. By the time our sledge made
the gangway and we hauled our tired legs up the incline, not only the
bear but all four hunters were out of sight among the hummocks.

As we came over the side, I looked questioningly round for the
watch officer to report my return aboard, but except for Dunbar who
was already half up the foreshrouds on his way to the crosstrees,
undoubtedly to get a better view of the chase, there wasn’t a man in
sight on deck, so without further ceremony, both Chipp and I laid below
to the wardroom, where, furs and all, we planked ourselves wearily down
at the mess table, calling loudly for Tong Sing and hot coffee. At
the table, in no wise disturbed by the shouting on deck, was Captain
De Long, still lingering over his breakfast. Eagerly he questioned us
about Herald Island while we ate; his disappointment at our report,
utterly dashing his hope that the island might ever serve him as a
base, was plainly evident, though he tried to conceal it from us by
changing the subject.

“Well, Chipp, there’s still Wrangel Land to look forward to.” He gazed
listlessly up at the wardroom clock. “But that’ll have to wait. Right
now I believe it’s time for Sunday inspection. Have Nindemann muster
the crew immediately on deck.”

“Nindemann, sir?” asked Chipp puzzled, having just seen our
quartermaster vanishing on a bear hunt.

“Yes, Nindemann of course. He has the watch now.”

“Sorry, captain,” answered Chipp, “but Nindemann went over the side
just before we returned chasing a bear. He must be over a mile from
here by now. However, now I’m back, sir, I’ll muster the crew myself.”

“Nindemann gone, you say? When he had the watch? Who gave him
permission to leave; Danenhower, I wonder?” De Long frowned, then
motioned to Tong Sing. “Tell Mr. Danenhower I want to see him right
away.”

“Dan’s gone too, sir,” put in Chipp quickly before the steward could
leave. “He followed Nindemann after that bear, to back him up, I
suppose. I’ll arrange for the inspection, sir.”

De Long’s frown deepened perceptibly at this.

“So the navigator and the watch officer are both gone, eh? Who’d they
leave in charge on deck?”

“Don’t know, captain,” answered the executive officer, “unless it might
have been the ice-pilot. But Mr. Dunbar was halfway up the foremast
when we came aboard, so I can’t just say.”

The skipper stroked his mustaches thoughtfully, finally ordered,

“Never mind the inspection, Chipp. I’ll delay it till they’re back.
But this won’t do. Even if we are in the ice, I can’t have my crew
disappearing from the ship whenever they see fit. Pass the word to all
hands at the next muster that hereafter no officer or man leaves this
vessel without first getting my permission. Do you understand that,
Chipp?”

“Aye, aye, sir,” replied Chipp. “Having just been across thirty miles
of this infernal ice, I quite agree with you, captain. We can’t have
our men chasing God knows where among these hummocks and never knowing
who’s gone nor why. But it’s not the men’s fault this time, sir, it’s
mine. I should have covered that by an order a week ago when we entered
the ice.”

“Never mind that, Chipp,” broke in De Long, “I’ll issue the order,
you just tell Danenhower and Nindemann I want to see them when they
return.” He rose abruptly, pulled on his fur parka, and went on deck.

Meanwhile on the distant pack, the bear hunt was in full cry, first
the bear under a full head of steam, then Nindemann tenaciously
following in his wake, then Danenhower a few hundred yards astern
getting somewhat winded, and finally bringing up the rear of the
column, Newcomb and Collins. Over the broken ice and in and out
among the hummocks ran the bear, giving his pursuers no chance for
a decent shot, and all the time (by instinct, no doubt) heading away
from the _Jeannette_ till it was lost to sight. After fifteen minutes
of hot pursuit, Danenhower, torn between the need of supporting
Nindemann ahead of him and the neglected Sunday inspection behind, and
disheartened also by observing that the bear was steadily gaining,
stopped at last, till the rear guard caught up with him and paused
briefly at his signal.

“We haven’t a ghost of a chance now of catching that bear,” panted the
winded navigator to his companions, “so I’m going back to prepare the
ship for inspection. But you two keep on to help Nindemann in case that
bear makes a stand. Savvy?”

Collins and Newcomb, saving their breath, nodded and set off again.

Danenhower, puffing heavily, returned to the ship, hurriedly mustered
the crew on deck, officers to starboard, seamen to port, and finally,
an hour late, went below to report to the captain that the ship was
ready for inspection.

In the chill winter morning, with the thermometer not much above
zero, we stood in our furs, officers indistinguishable in those baggy
garments from seamen, waiting for the captain to emerge. A bleak enough
scene. Along our whole port side was broken ice, piled up by the
pressure (which was heeling us to starboard) in irregular heaps till
it came practically fair with the rail and threatened if the pressure
increased to rise still higher and flow like a glacier down our sloping
deck. Aloft as usual, our rigging was outlined in ice, our masts and
spars cased in it, and our furled sails against the yards so thoroughly
frozen into a solid mass that had we wished to spread our canvas, it
would have been beyond the power of human hands even with axes to loose
one fold from another. That made me smile a bit. Our sails were even
more useless than our engines, for given time, I could at least fire up
again; but I could see no way in which Chipp could possibly make sail
till summer came once more.

In the midst of my meditations, De Long emerged from the poop. Swiftly
Danenhower called the roll, saluted the captain, reported three men
absent. The captain, to whom by now this was no news, acknowledged
curtly. The crew was dismissed, fell out, went below, and stood by
their various stations there while the skipper inspected the berth
deck, the galley, the storerooms, and in short, every space and hold,
commenting briefly now and then. As a whole the ship was dry; in spite
of the cold outside, no condensation and no frost as yet showed in our
living quarters or storerooms.

Inspection over, the bosun passed the word for Divine Service in
the cabin aft, but except for the officers aboard, the captain’s
congregation was small. Attendance being voluntary, the majority of
the crew stayed away, which may perhaps have been taken as a good omen
for I well believe the old saying to be so, that the reliance of a
sailor in God is in inverse proportion to his faith in the strength
of his ship. Evidently then our seamen, seeing no special danger in
our predicament, felt no great need for prayer, leaving that to the
captain, who, they well knew, was in the absence of a chaplain required
by the Navy Regulations to hold services. I may say here, however, for
Captain De Long that he was a deeply religious man and it required no
compulsion from the Regulations in his case to insure Divine Service
and to ask the blessing of the Almighty upon his undertaking and his
crew. Personally however, his position in the matter was a little odd,
because De Long himself was of the Catholic faith. Nevertheless since
most of the crew were if anything Protestants, he always conducted the
services in the Episcopal ritual.

Services over, we laid up on deck, to find practically the whole crew
lining the rail watching the absent hunters straggling back across
the ice pack to the ship, with the winded Nindemann leading and the
other two well in his rear. There were no signs of the bear, who had
evidently successfully outrun his pursuers, but what I think mostly
engaged the seamen’s attention as their eyes moved covertly from the
captain at the starboard gangway to the returning hunters on the ice
was their expectation of seeing the skipper light into the absentees
for missing inspection. Nindemann, first over the side, a little
surprised at seeing the captain at the gangway instead of Dunbar
to whom he had turned over the the deck, saluted De Long, reported
casually,

“Returning aboard, sir,” and unslinging his rifle, turned to go below.

“Wait a minute, Nindemann.” The quartermaster paused, De Long eyed him
silently a moment, while the crew, a little forward, looked eagerly for
fireworks, but to their disappointment De Long said very quietly,

“Nindemann, you were watch officer. For a quartermaster with all your
years at sea, I thought you knew better than to leave the ship without
permission. Never let it happen again.”

Nindemann, his stolid German countenance flushing under even that mild
reproof, hesitated a moment between the relative desirabilities of
silence and justification, then muttered,

“But, cap’n, before yet I go, I turn over the deck to Mr. Dunbar. And
that bear, he was already yet running away. There was not time for
anything.”

De Long shook his head.

“In an emergency, Nindemann, a watch officer may turn over the deck and
leave. But a polar bear is not an emergency. Don’t do it again. That’s
all now. Go below.”

For an instant, hoping to explain further, the quartermaster hesitated
but one glance into De Long’s quiet blue eyes changed his mind.

“Aye, aye, sir.” He gripped his rifle, shuffled forward past his
shipmates.

By this time, Collins and Newcomb were coming up the gangway. The knot
of sailors, disappointed in the expected scene over Nindemann, lost
interest and scattered. If the captain would not blow up a seaman for
a serious breach of discipline, he would hardly lay out an officer for
less. And in this they were correct. De Long went below before the two
hunters reached the side; they reported their return to Dunbar, and had
not Danenhower stopped them might have laid below unhindered. But the
navigator, curious as to events, laid a brawny arm on little Newcomb’s
shoulder, asked the naturalist banteringly,

“Well, ‘Bugs,’ how did you make out with that specimen of _Ursus
Polaris_?”

“_Ursus Polaris?_ There is no such specimen. _Thalassarctus maritimus_,
you mean,” blandly replied Newcomb. “I regret to say the specimen
outfooted us, and neither the quartermaster, the meteorologist, nor I
unfortunately got in a shot.”

“Too bad,” agreed Danenhower, “but what by the way is a thalassa—What
did you say?”

“_Thalassarctus maritimus_,” repeated Newcomb. “What the untutored call
a polar bear or in Latin, _Ursus Polaris_. That’s all wrong. It’s an
ice bear or, technically, a _thalassarctus maritimus_.”

“Well, well!” grinned Danenhower, “marvellous how a bear weighted down
with a name like that can run, isn’t it? By the way, ‘Bugs,’ when
you’ve stowed your rifle, you’ll have a chance to show off your Latin
to the skipper. He wants to see you in his cabin.” He turned from
Newcomb to the panting meteorologist. “And a little later he’d like to
see you too, Collins.”

“Me? About what?” demanded Collins sharply.

“Just a little private warning about leaving the ship without
permission, I guess. He’s already reprimanded me for it.” Danenhower
laughed. “My fault, of course. I should have known better.”

“Well, I _shouldn’t_,” snapped out Collins, and disappeared through the
door in the poop bulkhead, leaving Danenhower looking after him, amazed
at the heat of his reply.

Sunday dinner was a quiet meal in spite of the fact that in the cabin
for our main dish we had an unusual treat—roast seal—the one that
Alexey had shot on our trip to Herald Island, and which we had dragged
back on our sledge. The seal meat was excellent, something like rabbit,
I thought, and a very welcome change from salted beef and pork, but
nevertheless, except for Danenhower chaffing Newcomb, there was little
conversation. I was tired from the journey to Herald Island, so also I
knew was Chipp, but the wet blanket on the conversation was evidently
Collins, who mum as a clam sat through the meal without a word to
anyone, and as soon as he had cleaned his plate, departed suddenly
without a “By your leave” to anyone.

De Long, a little perplexed at Collins’ quick departure, hastily drew a
paper from his pocket, and broke the silence.

“Gentlemen, before anyone else leaves, here is an order I’ve issued to
prevent a repetition of what happened this morning. Each of you please
read and initial it.”

The order passed rapidly round the table. It was brief enough,
requiring each officer and man to get the captain’s permission before
leaving the ship, and requiring him to report both his going and
returning to the officer of the deck. When all had noted and initialed
it, the captain called to Tong Sing,

“Charley, show this immediately to Mr. Collins, and tell him to initial
it.”

Tong Sing took the order, padded placidly out of the cabin in search of
our departed messmate.

A little later, I went on deck myself. There outboard of the foremast,
leaning on the port rail, morosely watching the pack of dogs on the ice
snarling and fighting over the scraps of seal which Ah Sam had flung
them, was Collins. From his flushed face and his agitated manner it
was evident our meteorologist was much upset. While Collins’ puns had
always much annoyed me, and my casual jokes had no doubt irritated him,
still we were friends and on my appearance from the poop, he beckoned
me to join him, which I did.

“I’m trapped, chief!” he burst out heavily. “Back in the States, my
brother warned me I shouldn’t have shipped on this cruise as a seaman,
but like a fool, I didn’t believe him then! Now it’s happened, and I’m
trapped!”

“You trapped? What’s ailing you, Collins?” I asked, astonished at this
hysterical outburst. “We’re all trapped with the _Jeannette_ in the
ice, but you’re no worse off than I am.”

“It’s not the ice, chief!” Collins gripped my arm, drew me close to
the rail. “It’s the captain! I’ve been fearing this for weeks. You’re
all right, you’re an officer. But I was fooled into shipping as a
seaman! Now the captain’s got me where he wants me. Look at that!”
He reached inside his parka. I looked. “That” was a somewhat faded
newspaper clipping of an interview De Long had given a reporter from
the _Washington Post_, an interview which months before I had once seen
reprinted in a San Francisco newspaper.

“That’s where it started; look what De Long called me there!” With a
shaking finger Collins pointed to the middle of the clipping, in a
voice quivering with emotion, read an extract,

 “‘It may be that some specialists or scientists will be invited or
 permitted to accompany us, but they will be simply accessories.’

“See that? _Accessories!_” Collins’ voice choked. “He’s labeled me
as simply an _accessory_, Melville! I should have quit as my brother
advised me when I first saw that interview, not gone and shoved my head
into a trap by signing as a seaman!”

I looked at him curiously. Undoubtedly the man was overwrought,
seething with suppressed passion which something had finally touched
off. I tried to calm him.

“Now see here, Collins, what are you taking offense at? What’s so bad
about your being an accessory to the Navy in this scientific stuff? You
don’t think, do you, that in this expedition De Long and the whole Navy
should be accessories to you?”

But Collins, boiling inwardly, did not even hear me. He seized my arm
again, continued vehemently,

“And now he’s sprung his trap. That order he just sent me to sign! And
to show what he thinks of me, he picks his Chinaman to order me to sign
it! I’m in his power, on the books as just a seaman! Fool! If I’d had a
grain of sense, I shouldn’t have come except as an officer or at least
as a passenger!”

Collins was certainly beside himself. I looked swiftly round, fearing
he would make himself ridiculous before the crew, but fortunately they
were all still below, lingering over their Sunday dinner. I turned back
to Collins.

“But what’s bothering you anyway, brother? What’s this trap you’re so
excited about?”

“Don’t you see it, chief? It’s plain enough. I’m only a common seaman
here. In the captain’s power! And now to humiliate me, he’s forbidden
me to leave the ship without begging his permission!”

I stared at Collins incredulously. Was that all? If it had not been for
his overwrought features, I could have laughed in his face.

“Don’t be so damned morbid, Collins,” I replied as gently as I could.
“About that seaman business, you’re as much an officer aboard this ship
as I am, regardless of how the law required them to put you down on the
ship’s articles. Don’t you live in the cabin, mess with the officers,
muster with the officers? What more do you want? Some gold lace on your
sleeves? But even if you rated it, what good would it do you? Not one
of us wears it here. As for the captain’s order, it hits me and every
other officer and man aboard as much as it does you. It’s just part of
the ship’s discipline.”

“Ship’s discipline! Oh, no! That order’s aimed at me, personally! To
make me beg for every little right. To take away my liberty. Because he
fooled me into signing on as a seaman, the captain thinks now he can
take away my rights. But I’ll show him! He can’t persecute me!”

Here was a damned mess. Hardly ten days in the ice and our
meteorologist already talking insanely about persecution. He had the
civilian’s foolish idea that aboard ship by some hocus-pocus an officer
was a god, a passenger a free agent, and a seaman but a slave. Didn’t
he realize by now that in the Navy every man aboard ship was equally
subject to the captain’s authority; that in the hands of a tyrannical
captain, an officer’s stripes afforded no protection from abuse?
That if the captain really wished to humiliate and persecute him, a
commission as an officer could not possibly save him? I tried to calm
Collins’ fears.

“That order’s innocent enough, Collins, and it’s meant for all hands.
The skipper’d probably forgotten all about you when he wrote it out.”

“Oh, no, he didn’t! It’s aimed at me, all right. But I’ll fool him!”
Collins’ eyes positively glittered with rage. “Try to make me beg his
permission, huh? I’ll start a silent protest by staying aboard. Before
I ask De Long’s permission to leave, I’ll not go off this ship again
even if I die for it!”

I gazed at Collins in perplexity. An impulsive Irishman if there ever
was one, going off half cocked over a perfectly innocent order. What
ailed the man? Did he think the captain was jealous of his professional
attainments; was he afraid the captain meant to prevent him or anyone
else aboard from reaping what glory he might from the success of
our expedition? That outburst about being called an accessory—what
suppressed emotions did that reveal? Was Collins such an idiot as
to think that De Long after years of fighting and sweating to make
this expedition a reality, was now going to act merely as sailing
master on his own ship, putting aside his own dreams and ambitions of
discovery in favor of a minor assistant of whose very existence he
had been ignorant till a few short months before? I would never have
believed such egotism possible, but as I looked into Collins’ distorted
face, I began to wonder. However, so far as I was concerned, that was
neither here nor there. We were going to have a long time in the ice
yet together, and if life was to continue reasonably pleasant in the
imprisoned _Jeannette’s_ cabin, Collins must not make a fool of himself.

“Come now, Collins,” I begged persuasively, “think it over, and you’ll
see what I tell you is so—the order’s reasonable enough. But even if it
weren’t, you’d only make a bad matter worse by your ‘silent protest.’
I wouldn’t do that. It bears on me the same as it does on you. Now I’m
an officer of twenty-three years seniority, which is more than De Long
has, and were we both on board a frigate I’d be very much Mr. De Long’s
senior. But here on the _Jeannette_ he’s captain and my superior, so I
don’t feel it bears on me at all that I have to ask his permission to
come or go—it’s only a custom of the Service. And there’s the skipper
now,” I added as De Long appeared on deck from the poop and stood
blinking a moment in the glare from the ice. “Think it over!”

But unfortunately for my clumsy efforts to pour oil on the troubled
waters, Collins’ eyes, gazing out over the ice, happened to fall at
that moment on the two little wood and canvas outhouses a ship’s
length off the starboard beam, which served officers and men as
toilets, since frozen in as we were, the regular ship’s “heads” on the
_Jeannette_ itself had been placed out of commission. To these “heads”
on the ice all hands of course went freely as nature called. Collins’
eyes lighted up as he contemplated them. He faced me with a queer grin.

“Well, chief, I’ll modify a bit what I just said about asking
permission to leave the ship. In such simple language that he can’t
possibly misunderstand, I’ll beg the captain’s royal permission every
time I have to visit the ‘head’ and I’m going to start right now!” He
turned aft toward the poop.

Amazed at Collins’ intended action, I grabbed his arm and stopped him
short.

“Look here, old man, none of that! Do you want to insult the captain
openly?”

Collins twisted out of my grip.

“What do you think he’s trying to do to me, chief? I’ll merely be
carefully obeying his order. By God, I’m going to ask him to let me
go on the ice right now!” He strode aft, stopped before the skipper,
saluted him elaborately.

What he said to De Long, I can only imagine, since I was too far
away to hear, but I judge he phrased his request in about as plain
old-fashioned Anglo-Saxon as it could be put, for De Long, obviously
startled, flushed a fiery red, retorted angrily, and then turned on his
heel.

And from that time forth, Mr. Collins and Captain De Long remained
separate in all things as much as they could, simply carrying on the
duties of the ship. And from that time also, Collins, fancying offense
to himself in almost every remark made in the wardroom mess, withdrew
more and more from association with the rest of us, sticking only the
more closely to Newcomb, who as the sole other non-seagoing civilian
aboard, he may have considered as a sort of fellow victim.




CHAPTER XII


September passed, and the hoped-for gales which might break up the
pack and allow us to escape, or at least to work into a winter harbor
in distant Wrangel Land, failed to materialize. October came and went
in the same manner, no real gales, no winds strong enough to have any
effect on the ice, nothing but daily gusts of fine snow which cut our
faces and spoiled our footing for exercise. Frozen in, we went with the
ice drift, in a general northwesterly direction, till the rocky outline
of Herald Island faded into the hummocky horizon to the south, while
our continued failure to sight land to the westward made it less and
less likely every day that Wrangel Land stretched northward as we had
been led to expect. But we were not idle. After all, our expedition was
a scientific one. Aside from attempting to reach the Pole, aside from
discovering new lands in this unexplored ocean, our major aim was to
add to the world’s knowledge of the Arctic seas, of the Arctic skies,
of magnetic phenomena, of meteorological information and of animal life
in the unknown north. For these purposes we were the most elaborately
equipped expedition which had ever gone north. We carried two
scientists and God only knew what varieties of scientific instruments
gathered from the Smithsonian Institution and the Naval Hydrographic
Office.

Since exploration and discovery were for the present out of question,
De Long turned to all hands intensively on these scientific phases.
On the ice a hundred yards from the ship so as to be unaffected by
the iron in her, we set up a canvas observatory, with compass, dip
circle, anemometer, rain-gauge, barometer, pendulum, and a variety
of thermometers. Over the side, through a hole chopped in the thick
ice, we provided an opening for our dredge and our drift lead. Hourly
we took observations (and carefully recorded them) of every type of
phenomenon for which we were equipped to measure—magnetic variation
and dip, wind velocity and direction, humidity, air pressure and
temperature, gravity readings, temperature of the sea at top, bottom,
and points in between, salinity of the sea water, speed and direction
of drift—all this data laboriously read night and day in the Arctic
chill went into our logs. And for the zoological and botanical side
of our expedition, all hands were directed to bring in for Newcomb’s
inspection specimens of anything found on the ice, under, or above it,
which meant that whatever our guns could knock down in the form of
birds or beasts, or our hooks could catch in the way of fish, passed
under Newcomb’s scrutiny before (in most cases) they went to Ah Sam and
were popped into the galley kettles.

And to top off all in completing our polar records, we brought along
an extensive and expensive photograph outfit, intending to get a
continuous record of our life in the Arctic and particularly some
authentic views of Aurora Borealis.

So there being nothing else to compete with it for our time, science
received a double dose of attention, too much in fact. Taking the
multitude of readings every hour (there were sixteen thermometers alone
to be read) kept the watch officer hopping, and as each of us, except
Collins and Newcomb, had ship and personnel matters to look after,
it became to a high degree a nuisance. Most of this scientific work
naturally should have fallen to Collins and Newcomb, but unfortunately
matters in their departments went none too smoothly. The captain
received a severe jolt when he learned that the photographic outfit,
entrusted to Collins’ care, was practically useless because our
meteorologist had neglected when buying his photographic plates in San
Francisco to get any developer for them and that not a picture he
took could be developed till we got back to civilization. When on top
of this, one of our barometers and some of our precious thermometers
entrusted also to Collins were carelessly broken, the captain began to
mistrust Collins as a scientist and loaded a considerable part of the
observation work on Chipp, on Ambler, and on me—a development which did
not help to make any more amicable the attitude of Collins towards his
shipmates.

Speaking frankly, after two months’ close association in the cabin
of the _Jeannette_, we were beginning to get tired of each other’s
company. Life on shipboard is difficult at best with the same faces at
every meal, the same idiosyncrasies constantly rubbing your nerves, the
same shortcomings of your messmates to irritate you; but ordinarily
there are compensations. Shore leave gets you away from your shipmates,
while foreign ports, foreign customs, foreign scenes, and foreigners
give flavor to a cruise that makes life not only livable but to my mind
rich in variety, and to a person like myself, completely satisfying.
But in the polar ice, we came quickly to the realization that life on
the _Jeannette_ was life on shipboard at its worst—a small cramped
ship, a captain who socially had retired into himself, only a few
officers, and not a solitary compensation. No possibility of shore
leave, no foreign ports—nothing but the limitless ice pack holding us
helpless and no hope of any change (except for the worse) till summer
came and released us. And, impossible to conceal, a mental despondency,
as ponderable and as easily sensed as the cold pervading the ship
gripped our captain as we drifted impotently with the pack between
Herald Island and Wrangel Land, a thousand miles from that Pole which
in a blare of publicity from the _Herald_, he had set out in such
confidence to conquer.

Gone now were all the fine theories about the Kuro-Si-Wo Current and
the open path to the northward through the Arctic Ocean that its warm
waters would provide. We had only to look over the side at the ice
floes fifteen feet thick gripping our hull to know that the “black
tide” of Japan had no more contact with these frozen seas than had the
green waters of the Nile. And just as thoroughly exploded was that
other delusion on which we had based our choice of route—the Herr
Doktor Petermann’s thesis that Wrangel Land was a continent stretching
northward toward the Pole along the coasts of which with our dog teams
we could sledge our way over firm ground to the Pole. Every glimpse we
got of it as we drifted northwest with the pack for our first eight
weeks showed conclusively enough that Wrangel Land was nothing more
than a mountainous island to the southward and not a very large island
at that. As for Dr. Petermann and his idea that Greenland stretched
upward across the Pole to reappear on the Siberian side as Wrangel
Land, if that ponderous German scientist who so dominated current
European opinion on polar matters could have been forced to spend a
week in our crow’s-nest observing how insignificant a speck his much
publicized Wrangel Land formed of the Arctic scene, I am sure the
result would have been such a deflation of his ego and his reputation
as might be of great benefit at least to future explorers even if too
late to be of service to us in the _Jeannette_, already led astray by
the good doctor’s teachings.

How much the general knowledge amongst our officers that every theory
on which the expedition had been based was false had to do with the
lack of sociability and of harmony among us, and how much of it may
have been owing simply to our physical imprisonment in the ice, I will
not venture to say. But in my mind, the belief of all that as a polar
exploring expedition we were already a failure, doomed never to get
anywhere near the Pole, had a decided, if an unconscious, bearing on
the reactions of all of us, and most of all on the captain and on
Collins, both of whom had brought along massive blank journals whose
pages they had confidently expected to fill with the records of their
discoveries.

The captain’s journal I sometimes saw, as each evening around midnight
he toiled over his entries. Instead of records of new lands discovered,
of the attainment of ever-increasing latitudes exceeding those around
83° North reached by the English through Baffin Bay and Smith Sound,
how it must have gnawed the captain’s heart that his entries had
to be confined to such items as my struggles with our distilling
apparatus, our difficulties with such newfangled gadgets as telephones
and electric generators, or the momentous facts that Aneguin, Alexey,
or Captain Dunbar (as the case might be) had chased a polar bear (or
perhaps a walrus) which had been shot (or had escaped). All of these
happenings to De Long’s chagrin must be recorded as having occurred in
the low seventies, latitudes far to the south of those reached even
by the insignificant and ill-equipped caravels of Dutch seamen three
hundred years ago in their explorations of Spitzbergen.

What Collins put in his journal, I never knew. But I can well imagine
how much it must have irked him, a newspaper man accustomed to live
in an atmosphere of printing presses rumbling away over their grist
of momentous world events to be spread daily before the eager eyes of
_Herald_ readers, to have nothing to record except perhaps his personal
sense of injustice. Yet put down something every day he did, for I can
still see him, his long drooping mustaches almost sweeping the pages,
religiously bending over the leather-bound ledger every afternoon in
his chilly cabin in the _Jeannette’s_ poop, pouring the bitterness of
his soul onto those pages, building up a record with which I doubt not
he hoped when we returned to civilization to blast De Long out of the
Service in disgrace.




CHAPTER XIII


On November 6, two months to a day of our being trapped in the pack,
came the first break in the monotony of our imprisonment. About four
in the afternoon Collins, trudging perhaps for the thousandth time
the rough path to the observatory across that hundred yards of ice
which we had come to regard as substantial as a Broadway sidewalk,
came pell-mell back to the ship and up the gangway into the wardroom
to startle us with the news that the pack ice had cracked wide open
between our ship and the observatory! We rushed on deck and over
the side. Sure enough it was so. A little behind Dr. Ambler and the
captain, I arrived at the edge of the rent, over a yard wide already
and continuously growing wider. While we could still jump the gap,
there was a wild dash to get our precious instruments out of the
observatory and back across the opening to the ship, which (all the
officers taking a hand) we shortly accomplished without mishap. That
done, with varying emotions we watched as over the next few hours the
chasm widened, with the dark sea water showing in strong contrast to
the whiteness of the snow-covered ice. But not for long did we see
really open water, for with the temperature far below zero, the water
which was welling up to within two feet of the top of the parted edges
of the floe promptly froze, even though it was salt, into a sheet of
young ice. The gap nevertheless kept widening till by midnight it was
perhaps ten fathoms across.

What was causing the rupture? One man’s guess was as good as another’s,
and all were worthless, I suppose. There was little wind, no land in
sight for the edge of the pack to strand on, no evidence of pressure
from any direction, and plenty of water beneath us, for the soundings
showed over twenty fathoms to a soft mud bottom. Chipp’s surmise, that
a tidal action was responsible, was as good an explanation as any. But
what is not satisfactorily explainable is always fearsome, and it was
perhaps excusable that we looked with some anxiety toward our ship and
were secretly relieved to see her as steady as Gibraltar there in the
ice some fifty fathoms off, still heeled as usual to starboard with
her masts and spars showing not even a quiver as they stood sharply
outlined against the frosty polar sky. And so the day ended.

But morning brought a different scene. During the night from somewhere
came a push on the pack which closed that chasm, forcing the layer
of young ice which had formed over it up into broken masses on our
floe. Then with all the young ice squeezed out, the two parted edges
of the original pack came together under such great pressure that
the advancing sheet was shoved up over the edge of the floe holding
the ship, leaving broken masses seven to eight feet thick strewn
helter-skelter in a long ridge along the line of junction.

As an engineer, I regarded that broken ice with severe misgivings. We
fortunately were solidly frozen in, with our thick floe spreading in
all directions interposed as a buckler between us and the pressing
pack, but suppose our floe should split and leave us exposed? Could
any ship withstand a squeeze in that Titan’s nutcracker? In spite of
our thick sides and reenforcing trusses, the sight of those eight foot
thick blocks of ice tumbled upon our floe was not reassuring.

On the _Jeannette_, men and officers alike questioningly scanned the
scene while slowly the hours drifted by and we waited apprehensively
in the silence of that Arctic morning for what was next, and while we
waited even what light breeze there was died away to a perfect calm.
Then without apparent reason and without warning, the gap in the ice
suddenly yawned open to a width of some five fathoms and immediately
down the canal thus formed, broken ice started to flow in a groaning,
shrieking mass that so shook the floe in which the _Jeannette_ was
imbedded that to us there, only a few yards away clinging to the rail
of our ship, it appeared each instant the sheet of ice protecting us
must shatter and the _Jeannette_ herself be sucked in to join that
swirling maelstrom of hurtling ice cakes. Our eyes glued to the quaking
floe into which we were frozen, we watched it shiver and throb under
the battering of the broken blocks hurrying by, inwardly speculating
on how long it would stand up. Occasionally I glanced furtively at
the five sledges standing on the poop, packed with over a month’s
provisions for men and dogs, ready at a moment’s notice to go over the
side should we have to abandon ship. But if our ship, torn loose and
caught in that mass of churning ice, was crushed and sank, how could we
ever get safely away from her with our lives, let alone get clear those
sledges carrying the food?

Five hours of that scene and of such thoughts we stood, and then, thank
God, the flow of ice stopped. The _Jeannette_ was unharmed. We were
still safe. But how long a respite would we have? Who knew? Evidently
not our captain. As I went below, worn and frozen, I heard him call out
to our executive officer,

“Knock off all regular ship’s work, Chipp. Turn to immediately with all
hands and make a couple of husky sledges to carry our dinghies over
that ice if we have to abandon ship. And for God’s sake, shake it up!”

We got a day’s rest if one may call it that, while Nindemann, Sweetman,
and both watches toiled feverishly on the sledges. Then came another
day of strain, watching the moving ice grinding and smashing at our
floe, breaking it away to within a hundred feet of us. Then a brief
respite over night, only at 6 A.M. to have the motion start again
worse than ever.

This time, hell seemed to have broken loose. From the pack came a noise
the like of which I never heard before on land or sea, in war or peace,
sounding like the shrieking of a thousand steamer whistles, the thunder
of heavy artillery, the roaring of a hurricane, and the crash of
collapsing houses all blended together as down that canal in the pack,
a terrifying sight to behold, came stupendous pieces of floe ice as
high as two and three story buildings. Sliding by crazily upended, they
churned and battered against each other and against the thick edges of
our floe with such unearthly screeching and horrible groanings that my
eardrums seemed in a fair way to split under the impact of that sound!

Occasionally a berg would jam in the canal blocking the current. With
that, under the force of the ice pressing behind, our floe would groan
and heave up into waves till several feet of its edge cracked off,
easing the pressure and relieving the jam—but each time leaving us with
less and less of the floe between us and disaster.

Half an hour of this in the dim light of the early dawn, and then the
movement ceased, leaving our tortured ears and jumping nerves to return
to normal as best they could while the day broke. But our relief was
considerably tempered when in the better light we discovered that a new
crack had formed a little distance ahead across our bows and that into
this opening an advancing floeberg was being driven along like a wedge
towards our port side, threatening to cut into the undisturbed pack
there and leave us imbedded in a tiny island of ice, to be exposed then
to the wear of churning bergs on both sides of us!

With no further noticeable movement of the pack, we were left in peace
to contemplate the possibilities of this situation till late afternoon,
when the main stream again got underway and bombarded our floe to
starboard heavily for four hours so strenuously that it seemed to all
of us that this time we must surely go adrift. But at about 8 p.m., the
motion ceased again, leaving us all in such a state of mind that the
captain’s order for all hands to sleep in their clothes with knapsacks
close at hand ready for instant flight, seemed to us the most natural
thing in the world.

We didn’t get much sleep. Hardly had the midwatch ended, when little
Newcomb, who unable to rest at all, had in spite of the bitter cold
stayed on deck till 4 A.M., darted into De Long’s cabin, seized his
shoulder, woke him with a shout,

“Turn out, captain! It’s all over this time! That ice is coming right
down on us!”

De Long, already fully clothed, sprang from his bunk, seized his
knapsack, and rushed on deck. The rest of us in the poop, none too
sound asleep ourselves, were roused by the noise and hurriedly followed
him up to find that Newcomb had hardly exaggerated.

On the starboard side, like buildings being poured through a chute,
the broken floes were cascading along the channel at a livelier rate
than ever, but that at least was hardly novel to us now. What froze our
blood as we stood there in the cold light of the moon was the sight
ahead. The rift in the pack which yesterday was headed across our
bows, had changed direction squarely for our bowsprit, and now along
that opening was coming toward us irresistibly and steadily, towering
as high as our yardarms, a torrent of floebergs, thundering down on
the yet unbroken pack between with a violence that made the sturdy
_Jeannette_ quiver under our feet like jelly!

Hardly audible in the roaring of the ice, Jack Cole shrilled away on
his bosun’s pipe, then his hoarse voice bellowed along the berth deck,

“All hands! Stand by to abandon ship!”

Our entire crew poured up from below to shiver in a temperature of
twenty below zero and shake, I have no doubt for other good reasons,
as they stood helpless round the mainmast, all eyes riveted on that
fearful wall of advancing ice, with a crest of hummocks, weighing
twenty to fifty tons each, toppling forward like surf breaking on our
floe. Another crash, another startling advance of the floebergs, and
on top of the deckhouse I saw De Long suddenly grasp the mainstay with
both hands and hang on for dear life, awaiting the final smash as that
Niagara of ice struck us.

The blow never came. God alone knows why, but hardly twenty-five feet
from our bows, the onrushing wall of ice suddenly halted, the pressure
vanished, and we on the _Jeannette_ were left to contemplate, in the
deathly Arctic silence which ensued and in the growing light, the
indescribable wreckage that had been wrought in the level floe that had
once surrounded us. And then like a feeble anti-climax, the stillness
was broken by the whistling of the bosun’s pipe, followed by his call,

“All hands! Lay below for breakfast!”

Breakfast? Who really wanted breakfast? What each of us earnestly
wished was only to be far to the south, away from that dreaded pack
ready to crush us, but seemingly delaying the fatal moment as a cat
delays, knowing that the mouse with which it toys cannot get away.




CHAPTER XIV


Nothing else happened that day. Our dogs, which in the face of disaster
we had rounded up and penned inside the bulwarks, where they relieved
themselves by staging a continuous battle, we now let loose and they
joyously celebrated their freedom in chasing each other over the broken
ice. Watching their antics was some relief, little though it might be,
to frayed nerves and helped take our imaginations off what that broken
ice threatened to our ship.

As a further distraction, we had a clear day and far to the southward
sighted mountains, which we made out to be the familiar north coast of
Wrangel Land, some sixty miles away.

And that was all. The day which for us had dawned in imminent peril,
ended quietly with the _Jeannette_ still frozen in that two months old
cradle of ice, still uncomfortably heeled well over to starboard. We
began to breathe more freely.

We took no more meteorological observations, but so far as I was
concerned, I had more to do than before. Though the fires were out
in my boilers and all the machinery laid up, at De Long’s direction
I spent a great part of my time below during this period continually
scanning the sides and the trusses for any signs of giving way, and
inspecting the bilges to see if the ship was making any water. Of such
troubles there were no indications, but I had constantly while below
to be wary of my head, for I found that the banging of the ice shook
down a good deal of loose matter in the holds, and particularly in the
bunkers.

November 13, one week from the day the pack first opened up on us
and inaugurated our reign of terror, brought new excitement. Sleeping
as before in my clothes, I was wakened at 2 A.M. by a loud crack
which seemed to come directly from our keel. I slid from my bunk, in
the passage outside bumped into the captain, and together we ran on
deck, there to meet Collins who, on the midwatch taking the hourly
temperature readings, had rushed over the side and now was coming
back aboard. He reported that there was nothing new except a crack
in the ice not over an inch wide running out from our stem. This
was disquieting, but nothing else happened during the night and the
daylight hours passed quietly enough without further disturbance; so
much so that by afternoon the skipper (full of scientific zeal and
expecting apparently some days of peace) ordered our meteorological
instruments reinstalled in a temporary observatory. This we accordingly
erected on one of the newly-formed hills of ice as far from the ship as
we dared but still, fairly close aboard our starboard side.

From the grumbling of the seamen at this task as they dug into the
flintlike ice for anchorage for the guys holding down the canvas tent
over the instruments, I would say that the captain’s optimism was
hardly shared by his crew, but that was neither here nor there and by 5
P.M. when the twilight faded and night fell, the job was done.

Chipp took the first sets of readings. At eight o’clock, after supper,
I relieved him, to trek over the broken ice and by the dim light of
an oil lantern inside that flapping tent, read the dip circle, the
barometer, the anemometer, and a varied assortment of thermometers.
All the time as I struggled for footing on the rough ice pinnacle I
wondered what earthly good it all was, considering the negligible
chances of any of this data ever being returned home for scientific
minds to study.

At 10 P.M., I turned the job over to the captain (who, staying up
anyway the while he wrote in his journal, ordinarily took the readings
till midnight when Collins relieved him), and as was now my habit after
a week of alarms, I turned in with my fur boots on, earnestly hoping to
get some sleep to make up for the past week’s wear and tear.

Till 11 P.M., De Long in his cabin scratched away industriously at his
journal. Then six bells struck, he dropped his pen, drew on his parka,
and went over the side to take the hourly observations.

Being the commanding officer, and not one of his subordinates (in
whom such an appreciation of the beauties of nature at the expense of
punctuality in observations might have seemed a fault), De Long on his
way to the observatory paused a few moments to stand on an ice hummock
and admire a splendid auroral exhibition, a magnificent prismatic arch
to the northward, filling the sky from east to west and reaching almost
to the zenith. The beauty of this phenomenon was no longer a novelty to
any of us, but still he stood awestruck in the silent night drinking in
that soundless electrical play of colored light, when he heard behind
him a crisp crackling as one of our dogs walking on the snow. Turning,
he saw to his surprise no dog but instead two men, our so-called
“anchor watch,” racing down the starboard gangway and over the ice to
our stern.

Both the aurora and the still unread instruments were forgotten as the
captain ran immediately for the bow. To his astonishment, there he
found the ice pack peaceably floating away from our port side, leaving
it completely exposed with open water lapping our hull for the first
time in months!

And as he watched in dazed amazement, the gap opened so that in a few
minutes we had alongside the _Jeannette_ thirty fathoms of rippling
water in which was gorgeously reflected the northern lights (a detail
the beauty of which I think our captain now took little note). The
split in the pack was as clean and as straight along our fore and aft
centerline as if a giant hand had cut the ice with our keel, leaving
the ship still imbedded in the starboard floe toward which she heeled.
Meanwhile the port side pack, intact even to the bank of snow which
had built up above our gunwales, was sliding noiselessly away to the
northward, carrying with it, still asleep, three of our dogs who had
bedded themselves down in its white crust!

A glimpse at our heeled over clipper bow and at our bowsprit thrusting
forward over his head, quickened De Long into action. Nothing visible
now remained to hold that tilted ship from sliding any second out of
her bed and into open water! Back aboard he rushed, and once more the
quiet of the night was torn by the whistling of the bosun’s pipe and
Cole’s hoarse cry,

“All hands! Shake a leg! On deck wid yez!”

And again no sleep, as hastily in the darkness we hurried our
meteorological instruments back aboard, struck the observatory we had
so laboriously rigged only a few hours before, chased on board all the
dogs we could catch, rigged out our dinghies and our other boats for
immediate lowering, dug our steam-cutter out of the ice alongside and
hoisted it aboard, ran in our gangway, and lastly rigged out a fall for
lowering provisions over the side and into the boats.

That all this, on the sloping deck of the _Jeannette_, was done in the
darkness at fifteen below zero and completed by midnight in less than
an hour, indicates what speed and strength fear gave to our fingers and
our feet. For the men tumbling up from below had to look but once at
the precarious perch to which the _Jeannette_ clung to send them flying
to their tasks.

Midnight came.

Our work done, we stood by in the inhuman cold momentarily expecting to
feel the ship lurch under our feet, slide suddenly off into the water,
and without rudder, without steam, and without sails go adrift in the
darkness in that ever widening rift in the parted pack.

After an hour of this, with nothing happening to relieve the strain,
the tension became almost unbearable. De Long, looking over the silent
groups of fur-clad seamen clustered there on deck alongside the boats,
ordered Ah Sam to fire up the galley range and serve out hot coffee to
the men, hot tea to the officers. He then told Cole to pipe down, but
with all hands to stay in their clothes, ready for any call. So we lay
below, but I doubt if anyone had much better luck than I getting to
sleep again.

There was no need for reveille in the morning. The first streaks of
light found the whole crew from Irish bosun to Chinese cook lining the
bulwark, staring off to port. I climbed the bridge to get clear of the
snarling dogs. There before me, already ensconced in the port wing was
the skipper, rubbing his glasses to clear them of frost for a better
view.

“What do you make of it, chief?” asked De Long, nodding in the
direction of the distant pack.

I squinted off to port. A thin skin of young ice, possibly four inches
thick, had formed over the exposed water. Across that, perhaps five
hundred to a thousand yards away, was the bank of snow which the day
before had been piled up against our bulwark.

“Well, captain, it’s a quarter of a mile off anyway,” I answered.
“Maybe more.” From the overhanging wing of the bridge I glanced
curiously down on our inclined side, exposed now for the first time in
months. Near the waterline, still looking fresh and bright, were those
gouges in our elm doubling we had received in early September while
butting and ramming a way through that twisting lead into the pack.
Looking at those battle scars, I wished fervently that we had had
less luck that day in battering our way in. But that was a subject the
rights and wrongs of which were now never discussed among the officers.
Instead, scanning our listed masts and our unsupported port side, I
asked,

“What in the name of all that’s holy is keeping us from sliding clear?”

“God knows, I don’t,” replied De Long solemnly. “I just can’t figure
it out. When one side of our ice cradle slides away from us without
so much as taking with it any splinters from our hull, it makes my
theory that our planking’s solidly frozen to the ice on our starboard
side seem crazy. For why should the ice attach itself so firmly to the
planking on one side, and to the other side not at all? It’s beyond
me, Melville, why we don’t slide off.” He adjusted the furry edge of
the hood of his parka around his eyeglasses, peered down a second at
the scarred side below him, then while his glasses were still bright
and clear, stared off toward the wall of snow topping the edge of
the departed pack and finally nodded his head as if agreeing with my
estimate of its distance.

Looking worn and haggard, for if possible our captain had had even
less sleep than any of us during the past week, De Long finished his
examination, eyed for a long time his crew stretched out below us along
the rail, then turned to me,

“Melville, you’re older than I. In the late war you were at sea
fighting the rebels when I was still a midshipman, and you’ve been
through lots besides. So I feel I can talk to you, and lean on you as
on no one else on this ship, and God above us knows, I need someone
here to lean on! Every morning I pray to Him for our safety, every
night I give thanks to Him for our escapes during the day. But here in
the Arctic, God seems so distant, and this steady strain on my mind is
fearful! Look at my men below there, look at my ship! Neither my men
nor my ship are secure for a second, and yet I can’t take a single
step for their security. A crisis may come any moment to bring us face
to face with death—and all I can do is to be thankful in the morning
that it has not come during the night, and at night that it has not
come since the morning! And that’s the Arctic exploration I’ve brought
them on! Living over a powder keg with the fuse lighted, waiting for
the explosion, would be a similar mode of existence! Melville, it’s
hardly bearable!” And then looking down again at the crew, he muttered
wearily,

“But I’ve got to keep on bearing it. Call me if anything happens,
chief. So long as we’re still hanging on here, I’ll try to get some
sleep now.” With sagging shoulders eloquently proclaiming his utter
exhaustion, he slumped down the ladder and off the bridge, leaving me
alone, figuratively to add an “Amen” to his estimate of our situation.

For over a week, the listing _Jeannette_, which looked as if the
pressure of a little finger would send her tumbling out of her inclined
bed, nevertheless clung to her half cradle in the pack, defying
apparently all the principles of physical force so far as I as an
engineer understood them.

On the third day after the pack separated, we had a bad southeast
gale blowing all night and all day, with terrific squalls at times
reaching a velocity of fifty miles an hour. Although that wind hit us
squarely on the starboard bow, its most favorable angle for casting us
adrift, the _Jeannette_ held grimly to her berth and nothing happened.
Then on the fifth day, urged on by a northerly blow, the floebergs
again got underway, broke up the young ice to port of us, and jammed
themselves under our bows with heavy masses of ice pressing directly
on the stem. We confidently looked to see the ship knocked clear this
time, but evidently other floebergs jammed against our exposed side
exerted such a heavy beam pressure that we stayed in place, though the
poor _Jeannette_, squeezed both ahead and abeam, groaned and creaked
continuously under the stresses on her strained timbers. The sixth
day, the seventh day, and the eighth day, we had more of the same,
with streams of floebergs bombarding our exposed port side, and on the
starboard side our floe steadily dwindling under the impact of the
bergs hurtling through the canal there.

Life on the _Jeannette_ became almost impossible. Sleeping with our
clothes on, jumping nervously from our bunks at every sudden crackling
in the ship’s timbers, at each unexpected crash of the bergs outside,
we got slight rest for our bodies and none at all for our nerves. And
in the middle of all this, the sun disappeared below the horizon for
good, leaving us to face what might come in the continuous gloom of the
long Arctic night. According to Danenhower’s calculations, we could
expect the sun to rise again in seventy-one days, unless meanwhile we
drifted farther to the northward, in which case of course our night
would be still further prolonged.

On the ninth day since the separation of the pack, the wind rose once
more, blowing directly on our starboard beam, and the never-ceasing
stream of bergs began again to pile up across our stem, for us an
ominous combination.

On the tenth day, fearing the worst, we rounded up all our dogs, and
waited. The pressure ahead increased, with floating ice piling up along
the port side higher than our rail, finally starting the planking
in our bulging bulwarks. Under the bowsprit, the rising ice blotted
from sight our figurehead. Then an upended floeberg crashed violently
into the pack under our starboard bow and wedged its way relentlessly
toward our side. The pressure became tremendous. Beneath our feet
the _Jeannette’s_ tortured ribs groaned dismally. On deck we looked
silently at one another, waiting. Something was going to collapse this
time. Which would give way first, ship or ice?

Suddenly the _Jeannette_ lifted by the stern, shifted a little in her
cradle. Instantly the floeberg under our starboard bow drove forward,
split our floe, and with a lurch and a heavy roll to port we slid into
open water, afloat and undamaged, on an even keel once more!

Intensely relieved at having got clear without being crushed, we
nevertheless looked back sadly, as we drifted off among the floebergs,
at the shattered remnants of the ice cradle which for two and a half
months had sheltered us, to see it now tumbling about in elephantine
masses, no longer a haven of refuge in our trials.

Well, we were afloat. It was at least some consolation to have a level
deck beneath our feet while we waited, sailors with no control whatever
over our ship, for what next the ice pack had in store for us.

But the pack gave us a respite. Idly we drifted about in a wide bay of
broken ice, stopping for a brief time alongside one floe, then drifting
off till stopped by another. The wind moderated, the temperature rose
somewhat till it stood near zero, and finally it began to snow. There
being no signs of imminent danger, the captain ordered the bosun to
pipe down and we went below, permitted at last to eat a meal without
having the plates threaten to slide each instant off the table.




CHAPTER XV


What next?

I had thought that our experiences so far had sufficiently numbed my
nerves to enable me to stand anything further with comparative calm,
but I had underestimated the ice pack.

During the night after our going afloat nothing happened as we drifted,
but by early morning of the next day, November 25, we were once more in
action, fighting the pack for our existence.

At six a.m., as a preliminary, drifting ice pressed us against the edge
of the pack and piled high up against our side, nipping our port bow.
An hour or so later, this developed into a heavy squeeze which started
more of our bulwark planking, and listed us sharply to port. At this,
coming while we were at breakfast, things commenced to look bad and we
began to shuffle nervously in our chairs, all hands eyeing the exit to
the poop, but Danenhower tried to ease the mental strain for us when,
bending down to retrieve his spoon which for the third time had rolled
off the sloping table to the deck, he remarked,

“Well, mates, if you’ve been itching for the good old days, now’s your
chance to cheer. With this heel, the _Jeannette’s_ beginning to feel to
me like the old home again!”

But nobody laughed, and when after an hour of that ticklish heel, the
pressure slacked and we leveled off, no one regretted the missing list,
unnatural as its absence now felt to us.

Coming up on deck after a hasty breakfast, we found ourselves adrift
again near one end of a narrow lead of water perhaps a couple of miles
long, at the far end of which appeared a sizeable open bay. De Long
debated earnestly with both Chipp and Dunbar, whether he ought to
attempt to run out an ice-anchor and make fast to a floe, though the
question was largely academic for never did a large enough floe come
near us.

In the late afternoon with still no decision, the question was settled
for us when a strong current springing up for some unknown reason, the
rudderless ship began to drift stern first down that canal in the pack.
At the same time the broken ice behind us also got underway and started
to follow, bearing down ominously for our bows.

We moved along with increasing speed, to our deep relief steadily
gaining on the broken floes pursuing us, till unfortunately at a bend
in the canal, our stern took the bank and stopped us dead. At this,
with our rudder post anchored in the floes, it seemed as if we were
caught, when De Long sang out happily,

“Look! Her bow is paying round as prettily as if she were casting
under jibs!” and to our surprise, it was so. Our stem swung through a
complete arc of 180°, our stern drifted clear of the ice, and there we
were, wholly without effort on our part, properly headed downstream
with the current!

But even that slight delay while coming about promptly put us in
difficulties. As our stern drifted free of the bank, the oncoming ice
struck us and we were jammed through that canal to an accompaniment
of tumbling and shrieking masses of ice awful to contemplate. Huge
hummocks, tons in weight, overhung our bulwarks, threatening to break
off and crash down on our decks; floebergs large as churches bobbed
up and down alongside like whales, seemingly about to come aboard
and overwhelm us, time after time leaving us breathless as huddled
inboard round the mainmast we watched, not daring to go near the rail,
even more afraid to seek shelter below. Helpless, the _Jeannette_ was
pushed, rammed, squeezed, and hammered along amidst the screeching
of the floes. Just as helpless, we stood in the Arctic night thankful
nevertheless for the bright moonlight which at mid-afternoon was
flooding the scene, for had we without that moon been in darkness
forced to stand by and listen to that shrieking ice without being able
to see, God alone knows what effect terror would have had on us!

This hair-raising passage lasted half an hour. Then as suddenly as our
ordeal had started, it ended in the midst of an eruption of ice cakes
by our being spewed from a final jam blocking the canal into a large
open bay where the current, with room to spread at last, quickly lost
speed, and the terrifying floebergs, no longer constricted, fell slowly
away from our sides!

With fervent sighs of relief at our deliverance we saw the battered
_Jeannette_ lose headway, float gently toward the wide floe forming
the southerly bank of the bay, and quietly ram her blunt nose into the
young ice there, bringing up without a tremor and holding fast. So
ended our day.

It was getting along toward the end of November. For three days after
that, we lay against the edge of the bay while the young ice thickened
about us and a heavy southeast gale kicked up. Our useless masts and
spars whipped and rattled in the squalls, our rigging, swollen to two
or three times natural size by coatings of frost, sang in the wind in
a deep bass pitch wholly new to us, and the ship shook in the gusts
as if her sticks were going to be torn clean out of her. But to us as
sailors none of this was wholly novel; our only anxiety was what effect
this gale, the worst we had yet seen in the Arctic, would have on the
pack. We chopped a hole in the young ice alongside, got a lead line
down, and soon observed that the whole pack was drifting to leeward
with the wind, moving to the northwest apparently into a large water
space temporarily existing unseen by us somewhere there in the Arctic
Sea. These drift observations gave us cause for sober thought. What
would happen if, with the gale still blowing to urge the ice northwest,
something across its path brought the pack to a stand?

We soon found out. On the third day of the storm, in the dim light of
a moon just rising in the morning, we saw the leeward ice commence
to move past the ship, paradoxically going to windward. Whatever it
was, something _had_ brought the drifting pack to a sudden halt, but
the gale still howled on, driving to the northwest, and unfortunately
for us as we lay broadside to it, driving the ice to windward fairly
onto our port beam, dead against our framing. We were in for another
squeezing by the pack.

Before long the _Jeannette_, with the pressure squarely on her ribs,
caught now between opposing floes extending her entire length, was
quivering and snapping worse I think than ever in our experience. Our
spar deck arched up under the strain, pitch and oakum were squeezed out
of the seams, and a bucket full of water standing on a hatch on the
poop was half emptied of its contents by the constant agitation.

To leeward of us, where the ice appeared weaker, one sheet rode up over
another and against this double thickness of ice our starboard side
jammed, while the port floe (which for some reason seemed stronger than
the ice to leeward) pressed fiercely against us there. The _Jeannette_
thus gripped, shivered and groaned dismally and her decks bulged
upwards till the heavy athwartship trusses in her hull below came into
play and took the squeeze directly. When the ship was able to give no
further, the noise ceased, and for half an hour perhaps with only the
trembling of the decks to indicate the struggle, the pack pressed and
the _Jeannette_ resisted while we as helpless spectators waited the
outcome.

Suddenly the port floe humped and crumbled, relieving the thrust. Our
sprung decks flattened out to normal; we gasped in relief. But our
thankfulness was premature as it turned out, for piling its broken
edges higher against our side, the port floe, driven in by the wind,
pushed up for another nip and the whole performance was immediately
repeated with the _Jeannette_ in a few minutes as badly squeezed as
before.

For eight solid hours the _Jeannette_ fought the pack, over a dozen
times seemingly compressed to the point of collapse, only to have the
floe ice crumple up first and let her spring back into shape each time.
There was nothing we could do to aid her—as De Long put it, it was
simply a question of the ice going through her or of her being strong
enough to stand it. She was strong enough, which was all we could say,
and when at last in the late afternoon the gale died down, the pressure
ceased and she was still intact, we said it fervently. A good ship, the
Arctic Steamer _Jeannette_.




CHAPTER XVI


December, 1879, our fourth month in the pack, came in with crisp cold
weather; and as the days passed with the ice about us thickening and
the pack showing signs of some stability, we began again to breathe
without the subconscious dread that each minute was to be our last.
After a few days thus, we even settled into the winter routine of the
ship, released our dogs, and commenced to take some interest in the
wonders of the Arctic night.

For a month, under the shadow of death, personalities had been
forgotten, personal idiosyncrasies submerged. Now with the easing of
that strain, our likes and dislikes, our personal vanities, and the
ordinary problems of existence in the Arctic, popped up once more.

De Long began to worry over scurvy. No Arctic expedition previously of
which we had knowledge had been free of it; in many of them, scurvy,
even more than ice, had been responsible for their tales of horrible
suffering, death, and disaster. Overmuch salt was apparently the cause
of scurvy; proper diet, proper water, and proper exercise were the
antidotes prescribed by Dr. Ambler, and De Long plunged vigorously into
a program designed to protect us from that loathsome disease.

Exercise to fortify our bodies, the easiest of the requisites to
provide, received immediate attention. On December 2, after the first
night in weeks during which the captain felt secure enough to take off
his clothes when turning in, came a new order.

We were lounging round the messroom, hungrily waiting for breakfast
while Tong Sing padded about between pantry and table, setting out the
oatmeal, the coffee, and the thick slices of bread when the door from
the captain’s stateroom swung back, and with a grave,

“Good morning, gentlemen,” in came De Long, holding a paper in his hand.

“Good morning, captain,” we replied in a ragged chorus, and hardly
waiting till the skipper had seated himself, slid into our chairs. As
usual, I lifted the cover of the oatmeal dish and started to serve.

“Wait a minute with that, Melville; I want to read this order.” The
captain adjusted his glasses, stroked his mustaches a moment while
scanning what he had written, then in his scholarly manner read,

 “Until the return of spring, and on each day without exception when
 the temperature is above thirty degrees below zero, the ship will be
 cleared regularly by all hands from eleven a.m. till one p.m. During
 this period every officer and man will leave the ship for exercise on
 the ice, which should be as vigorous as possible. No one except the
 officer entering the noon observations in the log will for any purpose
 during this period return to the ship.

  (Signed) GEORGE WASHINGTON DE LONG,
  Commanding.”

De Long as he finished, passed the paper to the executive officer on
his right, and ordered crisply,

“Chipp, have all the officers initial this now, and then publish it to
the crew at quarters.” In a more conversational tone, he added to us,
“I suppose, gentlemen, the order’s obvious enough. We’ve got to go and
get some exercise or we’ll all stagnate in this darkness and make it
easier for scurvy to get us. I’ve chosen the time when at least there’s
a little twilight, even though the sun’s gone. Does anybody have any
suggestions regarding exercises?”

The paper (together with Chipp’s pencil) passed back and forth across
the table as one after another, starting with Chipp, we initialed the
order, but no one had any comments to make. Once more I started to
dish out the oatmeal. Danenhower, at the foot of the table, signing
last, tossed the sheet of paper to Tong Sing, who shuffling across the
wardroom, with an Oriental bow laid it down before the captain.

“Here, Chipp, take this to read to the crew,” said the skipper,
starting to push it toward the exec, then on second thought, holding
it an instant while his eyes glanced perfunctorily down the column of
initials below his signature. A deep flush came over his cheeks as he
read and he stiffened a little in his chair, but without looking up, he
announced sternly,

“Mr. Collins, I see you failed to sign this. What’s the matter?”

There was an instant of tension, then,

“Collins isn’t here yet, captain,” put in Chipp swiftly. “He’s often
late for breakfast. Thinks that having to take the observations on
the midwatch is such a strain, he’s got to sleep in every morning to
recuperate, I guess. I’d tell him later.”

“Oh, yes, I forgot that Mr. Collins is not usually with us for
breakfast.” The skipper’s flush faded, he finished pushing the order
to Chipp. “Very well, have him sign when he shows up. Now with respect
to the exercise for the crew, Chipp, serve out a couple of footballs.
They may want to play. And tell them that anyone who wishes can get
permission to take a rifle and go hunting.”

“Aye, aye, sir!” Chipp folded the order, shoved it into his jacket.
“But I’m not so keen on that hunting business, captain. Skulking around
through all these broken hummocks, the men’ll be shooting each other or
the dogs, thinking that they’re bears or seals or something. It always
happens.”

“I won’t shed any tears over the dogs, anyway,” growled Dunbar. “I
think shooting a couple of dozen of ’em ‘by mistake’ would be a good
thing!”

“Belay that, Dunbar, you wouldn’t be so heartless,” piped up
Danenhower. “Don’t destroy my last boyhood illusion. What would life in
the Arctic be without our dogs, anyway?”

“Still hell, Dan, if you ask me, either with or without ’em,” replied
the ice-pilot grimly, passing his plate to me for oatmeal. “But getting
back to the question of exercise, cap’n, I think letting the men hunt’s
a fine idea. Surprising how far a man goes thinking that at the _next_
waterhole he’ll surely get a seal!”

The surgeon laughed softly.

“He’ll be surprised all right if he goes with you, Dunbar,” drawled
Ambler. “I’ve done it and I know. Every time you say a thing’s a mile
away across this ice, the only reason it isn’t two miles off is because
it’s three. The men’ll be surprised all right if you take them hunting.”

Virginian and Yankee, the doctor and the ice-pilot were off again
on their favorite argument, Dunbar’s gross underestimation of the
distances he covered on his many scouting trips over the ice. But I had
another problem on my mind, and as soon as I had washed down my oatmeal
with the hot coffee (which by now Danenhower had managed to get Ah Sam
to turn out as a strong black concoction) I went on deck to struggle
with my distilling apparatus.

Historically, there is no doubt that scurvy, the seaman’s curse since
the days of Noah’s voyage in the _Ark_, has always resulted on long
cruises from the absence of fresh vegetables, the over-abundance of
salt beef, and the impure water (contaminated from the bilges) which
marked the sailor’s diet. And no one who has ever seen the swollen
joints, the rotting teeth, the hemorrhages under the skin, and the
bloated faces of the victims, but strains to fight shy of scurvy as a
shipmate.

Fresh vegetables, the first defense against this scourge, we could only
carry in limited degree when we left San Francisco, and they had long
since been exhausted. Of canned vegetables, especially tomatoes, we had
a considerable supply and on these we leaned heavily as an antidote.
Then of course we had three barrels of lime-juice, the specific remedy
introduced in 1795 by Sir Gilbert Blake with such good results in the
British Navy that ever since then the British tars, forced to drink
the stuff regularly, have been called in derision “limeys” by their
Yankee cousins. But in spite of all this we did not feel safe. Other
Arctic expeditions within the last fifty years, as strongly fortified
as we with lime-juice and in some cases as well supplied with canned
vegetables, had before the end of a winter in the ice found scurvy
decimating them in spite of their precautions.

We were fitted out with copies of every printed record of polar
exploration that either in the United States or in Europe, Bennett
or his satellites on the _New York Herald_ could lay hands on. And
De Long, a good student if the Navy ever produced one, spent hours
in his cabin poring over the accounts of his contemporaries and his
predecessors in the ice puzzling out that riddle. Why in spite of
lime-juice and canned vegetables, in spite of pure fresh water daily
replenished from melting ice, had even our immediate rivals in the race
to the Pole still fallen prey to scurvy?

Their books gave no answer, but our experiences in getting water
by melting ice from the floebergs round us soon gave us a clue. We
had been led to believe that when sea water froze under very low
temperatures, the salt in it crystallized out, rose to the freezing
surface as an efflorescence, and was washed or blown away, leaving the
ice free of salt and fit to be melted into good drinking water. Indeed
Dr. Kane, whose words at that time were accepted as gospel truth on all
matters Arctic, had written,

“Ice formed at a temperature of -30° Fahrenheit will yield a perfectly
pure and potable element.”

And confirming this, Lieutenant Weyprecht, of the Austrian expedition
which in latitude 81° N. had discovered Franz Josef Land only a few
years ago, said that they found that ice over “a certain thickness”
yielded a pure water.

We were confident therefore when we entered the pack that we needed
only to send out a party with pick-axes to obtain from the nearest
convenient spot on the floe an abundant supply of fresh water for
drinking, cooking, and washing purposes. But we were unpleasantly
surprised to discover that we could find not a particle of ice
anywhere, whether cut from the top, the bottom, or the middle of the
floe, whether taken from old floes fifteen feet thick or young ice a
foot thick, that did not contain from twenty to thirty times as much
salt per gallon as even the poorest water Dr. Ambler felt he could
safely allow our men to drink continuously.

During our initial few weeks in the pack we regarded this situation
with incredulity, the same incredulity I have no doubt that the
medieval alchemist displayed when his dabbling revealed a fact failing
to conform to the principles of matter set forth by the master,
Aristotle—it simply could not be so! We concluded at first that perhaps
the ice immediately around us had not been formed at low enough
temperatures, or that it had not yet had time to reach that “certain
thickness.” But having nevertheless to get drinking water the while we
waited for temperature and time to form round us the pure ice for our
permanent supply, we were reduced to scouting far and wide over the
floes, scraping together from drifts here and there enough snow to melt
up for our minimum needs.

But as 1879 faded into 1880, we drifted to the northward, and the
Arctic winter struck us in all its cold fury, we were given a choice
opportunity to try to our hearts’ content ice of every thickness,
formed under every temperature from barely freezing down to -60° F.,
and we could no longer blink the facts. On this matter, the masters
from Dr. Kane to Lieutenant Weyprecht were about as reliable as a lot
of gabbling old witches—what they said simply was not so!

In the absence of any startling geographical discoveries or of any
marked progress toward the Pole, that we had exploded a third Arctic
fallacy (those respecting the Kuro-Si-Wo Current and Wrangel Land
being the first two) gave to Captain De Long and Dr. Ambler a sense
of having accomplished something at last. For Dr. Ambler deduced from
the observed fact that all floe ice retained some salt, the mystery of
the scurvy problem in previous expeditions. These, using floe ice more
or less mixed either with pure snow or ice formed from melting snow,
had obtained water passably potable but actually (though their fixed
misconceptions kept them ignorant of it) containing so much salt that
in spite of lime-juice rations and what-have-you in the way of canned
vegetables, the scurvy had struck them down.

That deduction made it simple for us. All we had to do was to avoid the
use of tainted floe ice and we would be the first Arctic expedition in
history to dodge the scurvy. And in case the _Jeannette_ Expedition
discovered nothing else, to bring that discovery back home would at
least salve in some measure our pride as explorers.

But if we were not to use the floes, where then was our water to
come from? The obvious answer seemed to be from carefully selected
snowdrifts, but as we floated north with the pack, we learned the
futility of that. The drifts we relied on for the first weeks after we
entered the pack were soon used up and Nature never replenished them.
Apparently off the north coast of Siberia in the early fall it snowed,
but as we drifted to the north of Wrangel Land and the temperature,
falling far below zero, stayed there, to our dismayed astonishment
we learned that in the ordinary sense it never snowed where we were!
Apparently the intense cold froze all the vapor out of the atmosphere,
leaving such a trifling percentage in the dry air that regardless of
other favorable conditions for a fine snowfall, there just wasn’t
enough moisture to provide the makings. The result was that in a gale
when a temperature change brought snow, all that fell was a fine
powdery deposit, ice mainly, which driven by the wind cut into our
faces like needles. What was worse for us however (for in most cases
we could stay inboard during a blow) was that the gale drove these
particles over the pack with such force that they acted like a sand
blast on the surface of the floes, with the net result that when the
wind died, such drifts as we could find were so complete a mixture of
powdered floe and driven snow as to be heavily salted and wholly unfit
for human needs.

Now, while we could find no newly formed safe drifts, it had not been
wholly impossible for us to get sufficient good snow from the old ones
by going further and further afield in the pack until the last gale
in November. This after making us “shoot the rapids” so to speak in
that canal, had left us stranded miles from our original refuge in a
pack of what was mostly relatively young ice. Naturally there were no
old drifts in that vicinity and the captain, at first fearful of being
torn away at any minute, was reluctant to permit anyone to get out of
sight of the ship in searching for snow. Willy-nilly, therefore, we
got our water by scraping the tops of nearby drifts formed in the last
storm. This was so salty, however, that within two days Dr. Ambler
had several of the officers and most of the crew under treatment for
diarrhoea. Aside from the ordinary effects of this disorder in reducing
the vitality of those afflicted, to us it was especially disastrous,
for since the “heads” on the ship were for obvious reasons shut up, we
had for months been using portable “heads” made of tenting, set up on
the ice some little distance from the ship. It needs little imagination
therefore to understand what diarrhoea meant to a man under the
frequent necessity of hastily rushing off through the Arctic night to
a flimsy canvas tent to sit there in the bitter cold of a temperature
some thirty degrees or more below zero.

Given a few weeks of such excessive salinity in our water and it was
obvious that scurvy would get us, but that at least would take several
weeks. De Long was faced with the imperative necessity of rectifying
the situation within a few days or of risking the loss of his crew as
a result of the unavoidable physical exposure which diarrhoea entailed
under our peculiar circumstances.

De Long, Ambler, Chipp, and I held an ambulant council of war. Muffled
in our parkas, we first searched the pack around us for suitable
snowdrifts in the forlorn hope that perhaps the men had missed a good
one. We found a few that to the taste seemed passable, but in each
case the hope faded when the surgeon squeezed a drop of silver nitrate
into a melted sample, and inevitably the milky white reaction showed
excessive salt.

Not very hopefully we scanned the “head” situation. No chance of
improvement there. Since the ship was immovably frozen into the ice,
we dared neither to reopen the “heads” on the ship nor bring the ones
on the floe any closer to the gangway without risking an outbreak of
contagion.

So there being no safe water available from the pack ice, no hope of
getting any from snowfalls, and the absolute need of providing some
quickly lest the next movement of the ice find us with a helpless crew
unable even to abandon ship, it was the conclusion of the council that,
regardless of cost, we must make our own from sea water. Naturally
enough since I was engineer officer, De Long turned that problem over
to me.

Ordinarily it would not have been much of a problem technically. On
the ship steaming normally, and feeding her boilers from the sea, I
might have bled some steam off the auxiliary line, put it through a
distilling coil or worm we had fitted in our engine room, and collected
the resulting fresh water. But we were not only not steaming normally,
we were not steaming at all, because for the reasons I have given
previously our fires were out, our firerooms were cold, and our boilers
were emptied.

Aside from that, there was another angle to it that griped the captain.
To take sea water and distill it over into fresh water you’ve got to
boil it. That takes heat, and heat takes coal, and coal was of all
things we had aboard the most precious, more so even than food, for in
a pinch with our food exhausted we might go out on the pack with rifles
and knock down bears, seals, and walruses enough to exist on, but where
in those icy wastes could we go to knock down even one ton of coal to
feed our boilers when our bunkers were emptied? For we had left only
ninety tons, which (save for the scanty supply I doled out to Ah Sam
daily for cooking, and to Bosun Cole for stoking the two stoves forward
and aft to keep men and officers from freezing to death) under the
captain’s orders I was religiously husbanding, so that if ever we were
released by the pack, we might be able again to fire up our boilers and
do some of that exploring for which we had come north.

Up to now, to live at all, we had had to burn coal enough to run the
galley and our heating stoves; from now on, if we were to live without
scurvy, we would have in addition to burn coal enough to run some kind
of an evaporator. What kind it might be, to give us safe water and
still consume the least possible quantity of “black diamonds,” the
captain left to me.

The problem started not with “How much water do we need?” but with “How
little water can we get by on?” I canvassed this question with the
doctor, the captain, the exec, Ah Sam and finally Jack Cole—all of whom
had something to contribute on what was the least possible quantity
needed for drinking, for cooking, for tea, and for washing—and I came
out with the answer that 40 gallons of water a day, about a gallon and
a quarter for each one of our thirty-three men, was the irreducible
minimum.

Naturally for this quantity, which was more or less in line with the
daily capacity of any really ambitious Kentucky moonshiner’s still, it
was foolishness to think of firing up so large a kettle as one of our
main boilers. Thinking over what else we had, my recollection lighted
on a small Baxter boiler which we had brought along to furnish steam
for driving an Edison electro-magnetic generator and illuminating the
ship with his newfangled carbon lamps. Edison’s generator having proved
a flat failure (probably because it got soaked in salt water on our
stormy crossing of Behring Sea) the captain had ordered the whole works
dismantled and struck below into the hold. Without further delay, I
had Lee and Bartlett resurrect the Baxter boiler (leaving the rest of
the outfit below) and this little boiler with the help of my machinist
and fireman, I soon had rigged up inside the deckhouse, with its steam
outlet hooked to a small coil set outside in the open air on top of the
deckhouse, where the cold air would act as a very effective condenser
on the vapor passing through the worm.

Meanwhile, not waiting for this contraption to get into action, at the
surgeon’s suggestion the skipper ordered Cole to break out from the
hold a couple of barrels of lime-juice, which on December 2 for the
first time on the cruise, he started to issue. In our mess, a pitcher
of this stuff was placed on the table at dinner, where under the
watchful eye of the surgeon, each one of us, sweetening it to taste,
had to drink an ounce. For the crew, Alfred Sweetman, carpenter, was
given the responsibility of seeing that the men took theirs, and as
each watch laid below for dinner, under Sweetman’s observation, each
man was handed a tin cup with his ration of lime-juice and an ounce of
sugar to sweeten the unsavory mess, and compelled to drink it before he
could draw his food ration. Months of storage in casks had not improved
its flavor any, so in spite of Ambler’s gaze and Sweetman’s vigilance,
had it not been for the sugar generously served out to sweeten the
dose, I have little doubt that, scurvy or no scurvy, all sorts of
ingenious dodges would shortly have been developed to avoid swallowing
that tart medicine.

When the last pipe joint was tightened up, Bartlett fired the Baxter
boiler and we commenced distilling. Our first few days at it were to
my surprise pretty much a failure, for the distilled water which we
collected up on deck in a barrel set underneath the outlet of the
condensing worm, while better than the melted snow, still tested far
too high in salt for safe use, and our diarrhoea continued unabated.
This puzzled me (not to mention severely disappointing the captain) and
it took some hours of sleuthing about to discover the trouble. I then
found that we were feeding the boiler from a tank atop the deckhouse.
This tank was filled by the seaman on watch who hauled water to the
topside in a bucket from a hole chopped in the floe alongside. Unless
the man was careful (and a sailor working outside in a temperature of
30° below zero is interested only in speed and not in care) he would
slop the sea water over both coil and deckhouse, from which places
enough trickled down into the fresh water barrel to ruin completely our
day’s output. Having discovered this, I promptly rigged a pan over the
barrel to catch the drip and looked hopefully for better water. But
my hopes were dashed once again when, watching Surgeon Ambler test
a sample from our next barrel of water (the result of a whole day’s
distilling), I saw to my disgust the sample turn as milky as ever
immediately he dropped a little silver nitrate into it.

By now, we had been suffering four days from diarrhoea and the
situation was serious. I dropped everything else to devote my whole
time to watching the operation of our evaporator, endeavoring by an
analysis of what I could see done and what theoretically must be going
on inside the apparatus from firebox to receiving barrel, to locate
the reason or reasons why from our sea water feed, we failed to get
over and condense a pure steam, leaving all the salt behind as a brine
in the boiler. Thinking at first we might be boiling off the water
too fast, I had Bartlett damp his fire somewhat to make less steam,
but I soon found that that solved nothing. For with too little steam
going up through our condensing coil in the frigid atmosphere outside,
the condenser promptly froze up and burst a pipe, putting a stop to
distilling altogether till Lee thawed out the coil and repaired the
leak.

But hardly had we resumed operation again when what I saw gave me the
answer. Bartlett started up his little feed pump, and began vigorously
to pump cold water into the hot boiler to bring up the level in the
glass. Promptly, as shown by the needle on the gauge, the pressure in
the boiler tumbled and the water in the sight glass started to bubble
vigorously. And that had been our difficulty. The sudden injection of
cold feed water evidently created a vacuum in the steam space. Under
the reduced pressure the hot water in the boiler had boiled off so
violently that it carried salt spray up with the steam and over into
the distiller, where it ruined our make.

Now I had it.

“Enough, brother!” I sang out to Bartlett. “Stop that pump, haul fires
and secure everything!”

And from then on, alternating between sweating over that hot boiler
and freezing on our enforced trips to the “head,” Bartlett, Lee, and I
struggled all through the night. We shifted the location of the feed
water line inside the little boiler to a point as far away from the
steam space as we could get it, and inserted a constriction in the
steam line to the feed pump so that no one could, even by accident,
start the pump suddenly or make it stroke at anything more than dead
slow speed.

In the early morning, we finished, refilled the boiler, fired up, and
again started distilling. When we had to feed the boiler, we fed slowly
(which was the only way the pump would now run), and I felt sure from
the slight fluctuation of the pressure gauge that I had at last ensured
operation steady enough to eliminate priming. And when at noon with
the barrel half full of distilled water, Bartlett, Lee, and I, in the
front row of a cluster of fellow sufferers, gathered wearily round the
surgeon as he poised his silver nitrate solution over the test cup, I
felt there was some warrant for the hearty cheer which echoed down the
deck when Ambler announced,

“Very pure, chief!”

So ended our struggle to get fresh water. And in a few days our
intestinal troubles ended too, a result for which all hands were
devoutly thankful. But when I reported our success to the captain,
while he was even more laudatory in congratulating me than anyone
else had been, still for him there was a fly in the ointment which
completely took the edge off his enthusiasm.

“How much coal does that distiller use up, Melville?” he queried.

“About two pounds of coal per gallon of water made, sir,” I answered.

He figured mentally a moment, blinked sadly at me through his glasses,
then muttered,

“Two pounds per gallon, chief? Why, it’s nearly a hundred pounds of
coal a day just for distilling! That expenditure will ruin us if we
have to keep it up. Snow, snow! That’s what we need!”




CHAPTER XVII


Continuing his program for dodging scurvy, De Long followed up his
exercise order by another calling for a thorough monthly medical
examination of all hands. In this I believe he had two objects—the main
one, of course, to give the surgeon a chance to catch and deal with
the first symptom of disease and especially scurvy, before it had any
opportunity to get out of bounds; the other, by maintaining a record at
frequent intervals of our physical condition, to study the effect of
the long Arctic night and of Arctic conditions generally on the human
body, and to learn perhaps the best method of combating these effects.

I read the order absent-mindedly, made a mental note that at ten next
morning I was due for examination, and in the midst of my engrossment
over the urgent problem of how to save some coal, promptly put the
matter out of my thoughts. An hour later, Charley Tong Sing touched my
shoulder and announced in a singsong voice,

“Captain wantee you, chief, in cabin allee samee light away.”

More discussions about coal economy, I presumed.

But that idea was quickly knocked out of my head when stepping into the
cabin I found myself facing not the captain alone but also Mr. Collins.

A little surprised at this unexpected situation, I looked enquiringly
from one to the other. Both men were on their feet, both were angry,
and evidently trouble was in the offing. Not being invited to take a
seat, naturally I remained standing also, looking quizzically from
Collins to the captain, wondering what was up.

I found out soon enough. De Long, waiting only till he was sure that
the steward was out of the room and the door firmly closed behind me,
with an evident effort to maintain an even tone broke the silence.

“Melville, I’ve sent for you as the officer aboard with longest
experience in Service customs to get from you an independent opinion
on the propriety of my medical examination order before I proceed to
enforce it. It seems that Mr. Collins here objects.”

So that was it.

I swore inwardly. Here was Collins heading for trouble again, and
unfortunately for me, here I was dragged into the muddle, evidently by
the captain this time, and from the nature of the case, bound to offend
our meteorologist if I even opened my mouth. What ailed Collins anyway?
I had never seen a man on shipboard with such an unholy penchant for
getting himself into difficulties.

Apparently the wrinkling of my bald brow and the way I fingered my
beard as the situation hit me, gave Collins an inkling of my feelings,
for without giving me a chance to speak, he burst out heatedly,

“You’re absolutely correct, I do object! And regardless of what
Melville or anybody else you bring in here may say, I’m going to keep
on objecting! I never liked that exercise order you’ve already issued,
even though I’m obeying it. I’m a grown man, and I was before ever I
saw this ship, and I’ve got sense enough to decide for myself how much
exercise I need to keep my health and when I need to take it, without
anybody telling me. I don’t need to be ordered out like a schoolboy
for supervised play, nor have my steps dogged like a poor man’s cur to
see I take it. Nevertheless, I swallowed that. But this is too much!
I’ve got some rights and I’ve got some pride! Even if I am down on the
shipping articles as a seaman, I’m not a damned guinea pig, to be
stripped naked every few weeks for the doctor to experiment on!”

This time I guess my jaw did drop in open-mouthed astonishment. That
_seaman_ business again. How it must be rankling in Collins’ soul!
I looked from Collins’ overwrought face to De Long’s, flushing a
fiery red. Had he been any other skipper I had ever sailed with, I
should have seen Collins immediately clapped into the brig for gross
insubordination. But of the scholarly De Long’s reactions I was not so
certain. Prudently I closed my mouth without uttering a word. There was
nothing I could say anyway that wouldn’t make a bad situation worse.

De Long’s blue eyes, a startling contrast to his burning cheeks,
blinked queerly through his glasses as he stood there, struggling
inwardly to control himself the while regarding Collins.

“The scholar in him’s going to win out over the sailor,” I thought to
myself. “There’ll be no arrest.”

And so it proved. For what seemed an oppressive length of time under
that strain, the captain, without speaking, glared at Collins and
Collins unflinchingly glared back. Finally in an unbelievably mild
tone, the captain broke the tension.

“Will you please be seated, chief? I should have asked you before.” I
sat down. “And that will do for you, Mr. Collins; you may go now. I see
that Mr. Melville and I will get along much more rapidly discussing
this subject without your presence.”

Like an animal suddenly uncaged Collins, still glaring, turned his
back on us, and broke from the cabin, leaving the door wide open. The
captain closed it, then sank into an armchair facing me, nervously
chewing the twisted ends of his mustaches. Still breathing heavily from
his repressed emotions, he turned to me,

“Melville, it seems that everything I do for the discipline and safety
of my crew, that man takes as a personal affront! And now over this
examination matter, he’s positively insubordinate! I sent for you
that we might all discuss that order in a reasonable manner, and find
out what’s wrong with it, if anything is. But you saw what happened
instead! Nevertheless, chief, I want your frank opinion. Is there
anything wrong with that order?” De Long paused, looked anxiously at me.

“To tell you the truth, captain,” I said, “I read it only once
hurriedly and then never gave it a second thought. The Navy Regulations
require us all to stand an annual physical examination; what difference
it makes to anyone, except to the doctor who has to do the work, if
it’s monthly, I can’t see. But so long as Dr. Ambler isn’t complaining,
what’s Collins blowing up about it for?”

De Long shook his head wearily.

“I don’t know, unless he can’t get it out of his head that I’m
persecuting him. That hallucination of his about being a seaman started
him off on it long ago. Congress wrote the law commissioning the
_Jeannette_ under which he shipped—I didn’t. He had to ship that way or
not at all, but Heaven knows I’ve treated him as an officer in spite
of it! A lot of good it’s done. I try to make every allowance for his
point of view, but there is a limit. I can’t let him defy me on this
medical examination. Even if I were so derelict in my duty as to allow
discipline to be flouted by such mutinous conduct, I just can’t take
chances on having a sick crew in our desperate situation!”

“Right enough, captain,” I agreed. “I should think even Collins would
see that. He’s an intelligent, educated man. But I think there’s
something in addition to the persecution bug that’s biting him this
time. Did you catch the inflection he put on that word ‘naked’?”

“I’m afraid I was so astounded at his words, I missed his inflections,”
confessed the skipper. “What about it? What’s wrong with ‘naked’ here,
inflected or not? There’s not a woman within a thousand miles of us to
embarrass anybody.”

In spite of the gravity of the situation, I grinned inwardly at that.

“Well, captain,” I said, “so much the worse for us. I just have an
idea that’s one reason this crew’s all so glum. But that’s not what
I was aiming at in Collins’ case. Women don’t enter into his ideas
of embarrassment. It’s all in the way he was brought up. He’s a
sensitive person, almost morbid, I’d say, and the idea of having to
strip before anybody, especially under what he thinks is compulsion,
gripes his ideas of dignity and personal privacy. Now, I’m not excusing
insubordination, sir, but with Collins’ peculiar civilian background in
this expedition, since you’ve asked for it, I’d suggest a modification
of that order that’ll still get the results and not hurt anybody’s
feelings. Of course the change can’t be for him alone; that would never
do—but why not modify it so’s the doctor examines all the officers
stripped to the waist only, and all the crew stripped completely?
That’ll have two good effects. It won’t require anything of Collins
that offends his dignity, and it’ll show him that he’s getting better
treatment than the ‘seamen’ he’s so wrought up about being classed
with. Then if anything’s ever going to clear the cobwebs out of his
brain and stop his bellyaching, that’ll do it.”

To De Long, already overburdened with a sense of failure and the
weight of the Arctic problems menacing us, and sincerely desirous of
maintaining harmony amongst his personnel, this appealed as a sensible
solution. He nodded approvingly.

“A good idea,” he agreed, expansively relaxing in his chair. “I’ll do
it! And much obliged to you for the suggestion, chief. It helps a lot
to feel I can always rely on you to lend a hand when there’s anything
wrong, whether with the machinery or the men.”

“Hey, brother!” I cautioned, “easy on taking in so much longitude in
your thanks. Better wait till you see how it works. I’ll guarantee the
machinery on this ship, but God himself won’t guarantee the men!” and
with that I took my departure and returned to my evaporator, leaving
the captain to redraft his order for the medical examinations.

To a degree, it worked. Collins, who it seems had submitted a written
protest in addition to expressing himself so freely orally, when he
read the revised order asked leave to withdraw his objection, and
submitted himself (though very sullenly) to the examination which Dr.
Ambler carried out in the privacy of his cabin. And the captain, who,
boiling under Collins’ insolence, had been ready to hang him for it,
calmed down despite the fact that in a measure Collins had won, and
accepted the situation, treating Collins as courteously as if nothing
had ever arisen.

Collins, however, not appreciating his luck, failed to reciprocate.
Ever since the bear hunt incident, he had refused to ask the captain’s
permission to go on the ice, staying aboard except when his routine
observatory duties (and now the enforced exercise order) gave him
the opportunity to leave the ship without asking. Instead, he had
ostentatiously paced the deck, indulging in what he was pleased to
inform us was “a silent protest,” which obviously gave him great
satisfaction, though why I don’t know for De Long diplomatically took
the sting out of that performance by totally ignoring it. Now Collins
withdrew still further into his shell, avoiding the captain altogether
except when duty made it impossible, and what was worse for him,
taking to avoiding the rest of us also when he conveniently could,
a proceeding which hardly added to the sociability of the wardroom
mess. He even refused to say “Good morning” to any of us when first
we greeted him in the messroom, and this boorishness soon put him
completely beyond the pale of our little society.

Queerly enough, Collins now began associating almost exclusively with
the very seamen with whom he took such violent objection to being
classed, spending most of his time with my fireman Bartlett, and
retailing to him and thus to the crew generally, practically every bit
of wardroom gossip that he heard. Such a situation was hardly desirable
aboard ship, and De Long endeavored to put an end to it by privately
conveying to our meteorologist the information that such association
was decidedly contrary to naval custom and that it was beneath his
dignity as an officer so to consort with enlisted men. But the
captain’s friendly admonition only drew more black looks from Collins,
leaving De Long more perplexed than ever over Collins who refused to
comport himself either as officer or seaman, and leaving Collins with
his persecution mania flaring up even more fiercely.

December dragged along. The ice around us kept freezing thicker and
thicker under the intense cold. On the surface, the pack held together,
but despite that, kept us uneasy. Night and day (by the clock, that
is, for so far as light went, it was always night for us except for
a semi-twilight around noon) even in calm weather we were likely
to be disturbed by noises like the beating of the paddle wheels of
innumerable steamers and by occasional terrifying shocks on our hull,
all of which kept us jumpy. At first we had no explanation for this
uncanny state of affairs, the pack around us showing no movement and
the ship being solidly enough frozen in.

But Dunbar finally solved it for us. As he pointed it out, evidently
we were now suffering from a bombardment of underrunning floes.
Considerable masses of ice thrust under the pack in the November
breakups were kept constantly in motion by the current beneath the
refrozen surface. They bumped along as best they could under its
ragged contour, giving that paddle wheel effect, and naturally enough
when one collided with our submerged hull, giving us the unpleasant
sensation of having struck a rock.

An understanding of the situation, while removing the mystery, did
not greatly help our peace of mind. None too sure in the light of our
past experiences, of the solidity of the newly frozen pack, we were
forever standing by for an emergency with sledges, boats, knapsacks,
and provisions ready to go over the side. The monotony of continually
expecting trouble with none of the excitement of actually seeing things
happening, had its own peculiar effect on us, making sound sleep
impossible, killing our appetites, and leaving us restless, listless,
and haggard, a condition which the severe physical discomforts of our
situation naturally aggravated.

Still, for all our nervousness, we began to note some strange things,
the results of the intense cold which descended on us. The atmosphere,
practically free of moisture, was startlingly clear, and never have
I seen such brilliant stars as shined down on us from those December
Arctic skies. Then (owing perhaps to the increased density of the
cold air) sounds on the ice traveled unusual distances and boomed and
reverberated as if from an overhead dome or the roof of a mammoth
cave. And the auroras, shimmering across the sky in a dance of vivid
colors, were indescribably beautiful. But what struck us most, around
thirty degrees below zero, was the almost unbelievable effect of the
cold on the ice itself. Subjected to a temperature far below its
freezing point, the ice assumed a flinty hardness and strength entirely
different from its normal state. The floes grating against each other,
instead of crumbling under pressure, gave out an unearthly high-pitched
screech. And when we went out with picks or axes to dig away the ice in
the fire hole under our stern, granite itself could not have been more
effective than that cold ice in turning the edges and blunting the
points of our tools.

Finally there was another effect of the extremely low temperature which
most of all racked our nerves. Standing, sitting, or sleeping, who can
accustom himself to having pistols unexpectedly discharged practically
in his ears? Yet we were constantly exposed to such nervous shocks.
For all over the ship, the iron fastenings of our planking and our
timbers, contracting abnormally from temperatures never expected by the
builders, compressed the wood under the bolt heads as the iron shrank
till the wood, finally able to stand no more, suddenly snapped with a
noise like a pistol shot. And so startling was each such explosion in
one’s ears, so like a pistol discharge, that even the thousandth time
it happened, involuntarily I jumped as badly as the first time I ever
heard it.

Even the poor dogs suffered unexpected trials and I well believe that
to their canine souls, their difficulties were quite as trying as ours.
Like Dunbar, I had little natural sympathy with the vicious brutes and
saw little value in their presence, but having been to some degree a
party to transporting them from their usual habitat, I could not but
feel some responsibility for their new troubles. And queerly enough it
fell to my lot as engineer partly to relieve them.

Aneguin and Alexey, our two Indians, were primarily responsible for our
forty dogs. Each day in the forenoon watch, they fed them, bringing up
from the forehold from the cargo of dried fish we had taken aboard at
Unalaska, the necessary amount for issue, one dried fish per dog per
day being the authorized ration. Ordinarily, the wise dogs immediately
crushed their fish in their powerful jaws and swallowed them in one
gulp; the otherwise dogs (a pun I fear almost worthy of Collins) found
themselves fighting for the remains of their fish with their mates who
were quicker on the swallow, a habit which always made feeding time
alongside ship a bedlam. Without particularly paying any attention as
to why, I noted vaguely that as December drew on, this daily snarling
of the dogs over their food subsided. As a minor blessing I was duly
grateful, until one day coming aboard a little late after my prescribed
exercise period, I saw Alexey on the quarterdeck performing an autopsy
on a dog which following a brief illness the afternoon before had
died during the night. As I approached, Alexey removed from the dog’s
stomach a wad of oakum as big as a baseball, the very evident cause of
his death. I squeezed the ball, incredulous. Oakum, all right. But why
should even an Eskimo dog eat that? I asked Alexey. Between pantomime
and Indian English he explained it to me,

“Fish in hold freeze, chief. Verr hard. Dog chew. Verr hard. Lak iron.
No good chew.” He seized a marlinspike, went through the motions of a
dog trying to chew a fish frozen presumably as hard as iron, and very
plainly breaking his teeth on it. He laid down the marlinspike. “No
good. No chew fish, no swallow. Dog get ongry. Bym bye eat oakum. Bym
bye die.” Sadly he waved at the deceased dog.

That explained the cessation of our daily dog fights at feeding time.
The fish stowed in our hold had frozen so hard there that no dog, no
matter how energetically he chewed, was now able to masticate his own
fish quickly and get it down. As a consequence, all the dogs being in
the same boat, too busily engaged trying to chew their own dinners to
bother about stealing each other’s, there were no fights. But this poor
devil, his teeth apparently unable to make any impression on the fish,
had been driven in desperation to something softer and had unwittingly
committed suicide by gobbling the oakum.

I grunted sympathetically. A dog’s life, all right. But I could fix it.
Motioning Alexey to follow me inside the deckhouse, I had him bring up
from the hold one day’s issue of fish, only thirty-nine now. They were
frozen hard, no question; even with a crowbar, it would take a strong
man to make a visible impression on one of those glaciated fish. Sizing
up their approximate volume, I had Lee make a sheet iron box large
enough to hold the lot, and fit inside it a few turns of pipe which
I connected to the blowdown from our evaporator, the Baxter boiler.
Alexey tossed in the frozen fish, and Lee put on the cover.

“That’ll thaw ’em out, Alexey,” I informed him. “Every time we blow
down the hot brine from that boiler, it’ll heat the fish, and in a few
hours, they’ll be so soft, even a dog with false teeth won’t have any
trouble with ’em. Now don’t forget; fill the box every night, and by
morning dinner for the dogs will be all ready.”

Alexey, a very good Indian and deeply concerned for the well-being of
his charges, thanked me profusely, and judging by the resumption of the
snarling over dinner next day, I guessed the dogs had reason to also.

But the dogs had still one more cross to bear that I could not ease.
Their instinctive habit in cold weather was to bed themselves down at
night in soft snow, keeping themselves as comfortable that way as an
Eskimo inside his igloo of ice. But if we had reason to regret the
absence of snow because it deprived us of a source of fresh water,
the dogs lamented its absence even more because it robbed them of
their natural beds. Night after night they wandered round the ship
disconsolately looking for drifts, and finding none, were forced at
last to turn in on the bare ice. For some time, we had noticed each
morning here and there hair imbedded in the ice, but when the December
cold snap hit us, we were surprised to find several dogs with so much
hair frozen to the ice that they just could not tear themselves free.
There was, however, nothing we could do about that except to make it
Aneguin’s regular detail to go out before feeding time each morning
with a shovel and break out from the floe all the dogs that had been
frozen down the night before, a job which required great finesse with
the shovel on Aneguin’s part lest all our dogs soon become as bald as
Mexican hairless poodles.




CHAPTER XVIII


Monotonously the dreary days drifted by. In darkness we ate our food,
took our exercise, thawed out our frozen noses afterward, and vaguely
wished we could “go somewheres.” December 22, the shortest day of the
year came, bringing with it, aside from the most brilliant display of
auroras we had yet witnessed, only the knowledge that with the sun at
its extreme southern declination, half of our seventy-one day long
night was gone. But the day itself was further marked by the fact that
Mr. Dunbar, that veteran whaler and the only member of our mess who
had ever before wintered inside either the Arctic or the Antarctic
Circles, came down with a bad cold. His tough hide had according to
his own claim always before resisted illness, so this made him doubly
miserable, and he moped around the wardroom very low in spirit.
Finally, as if to make sure that we remembered the day, Danenhower also
complained that his left eye pained him, and after a session with the
doctor, big Dan completed our picture of wardroom woe by coming in with
a black patch over the ailing optic, explaining that Ambler had found
it somewhat inflamed and had advised him to give it a rest by shielding
it even from the poor glow of our oil lamps for several days.

Two days later we came to Christmas Eve, which for us, except for
plenty of ice around, was everything that traditionally Christmas
Eve is not. No children about, eagerly excited over hanging up
their stockings; no friends dropping in; no families, no wives, no
sweethearts—nothing of these for any of us, but instead only the
memories of bygone Christmases under happier circumstances, and the
hope (clouded by gnawing doubts) that another Christmas might see us
out of the ice and restored home.

We gathered in the wardroom, a glum group—Dunbar nursing his cold,
Danenhower with his black patch looking like a pirate in distress,
Ambler, De Long, Chipp, Newcomb, and myself. Only Collins was missing.
That his presence would have added any gaiety was questionable, but
that he saw fit to stay locked in his stateroom keeping the wardroom
bulkhead between himself and us, certainly added to the general
gloom. And gloomy it certainly was in that room—a smoky oil lamp the
only illumination, the warped wood panels of the bulkheads the only
decoration, overhead the deck beams heavily covered with insulating
layers of felt and canvas, dismally sagging under the weight of the
combination of frost and moisture with which they were saturated,
and beneath our feet the sloping wood deck, wet from the condensate
dripping off the cold forward bulkhead.

I did the best I could to lighten matters up. Back at the Mare Island
Navy Yard before we left, Paymaster Cochran had thoughtfully presented
me with a bottle of fine old Irish whiskey which I had so far carefully
hoarded. Now I broke it out from beneath my berth, scraped together
some other ingredients, and with all hands watching, mixed a punch in
the soup tureen. In the damp chill of the barren wardroom, we filled
our glasses, lifted them.

“To Cochran!” I proposed. “May he yet be Paymaster General!”

With no disagreement to this, we all downed Cochran’s whiskey,
and warmed a little by the fiery Irish spirits, promptly refilled
our glasses. There was just enough for a second round. I looked
questioningly at De Long for him to propose the second and (of
necessity) last toast. Whom would he choose, James Gordon Bennett, the
sponsor of our venture; the President; someone more personal, perhaps?

But Danenhower gave him no chance. Lifting his glass, he waved it over
the empty bowl, swept us all with his one uncovered eye, and sang out,

“To our old shipmates, Emma De Long and Sylvie—may they never have
cause to worry over us!”

That also I could heartily endorse, so wasting no regrets over the
amenities due Bennett or the President, I raised my glass to drink as
did the others, when Dunbar alongside me poked me in the ribs. I leaned
over toward him.

“Mrs. De Long’s all right with me,” he whispered, his voice hoarse from
his cold, “but who’s this Sylvie?”

“Captain De Long’s daughter,” I hissed. “You old fool! Drink it down
before he knocks you down!”

“Oh, all right,” mumbled Dunbar. “I thought maybe she might be
Newcomb’s sweetheart.” He drank his whiskey at a gulp.

And that just about ended our party. With no more punch to serve as
an excuse for conviviality, the conversation soon faded into the
general murk gripping the room, and with everyone seemingly immersed in
memories of happier Christmas Eves, one by one all hands drifted away
to warm over their recollections in the solitude of their staterooms.

Christmas Day, mainly because it lasted longer, was even more dreary
than Christmas Eve. A high wind and biting clouds of fine snow made
going on deck or on the ice wholly uninviting. Confined again to the
wardroom or to our staterooms, we moped over our memories, tried to
imagine how friends, relatives, or families were spending the day, and
thought a little enviously of Navy shipmates in port the world over
with vessels decorated from deck to trucks with wreaths and garlands
of greenery, and wardrooms echoing with the alluring laughter of women
troubled with no deeper problem than how after dinner to get a husband
or a sweetheart excused from watch and off the ship.

We did have a grand dinner, to provide which Ah Sam performed miracles
with the humdrum materials available in the storeroom, topping off
all with mince pies soaked in brandy. The eating of this unexpected
banquet almost made us forget our surroundings and our situation. But
not quite, for we ate our dinner to the constant rumbling of the unseen
pack, the occasional explosive snapping of timber fastenings, and even
a few sharp shocks from underrunning floes. And like a death’s head
at the feast, to show that all was not joy and brotherly love on the
_Jeannette_ on this Christmas Day, there next to Danenhower at the foot
of the table was Collins’ chair—empty, while Collins, sulking in his
stateroom, dined alone.

I think I misstate nothing when I say that in the wardroom of the
_Jeannette_ we were all thoroughly grateful to see the last of that
Christmas Day, and I have little doubt that each of us fervently prayed
ever to be spared another like it.

December dragged away. We came to the end of the year 1879. To help
the crew in welcoming in the year 1880 on which now he banked heavily
for success, the captain sent forward four quarts of brandy, while
I did what I could with a fifth quart to provide good cheer for the
wardroom mess. As a result, when the rapid ringing of the ship’s
bell at midnight marked the birth of 1880, the whole crew (despite a
temperature nearly 40° below zero) gathered on the quarterdeck just
outside De Long’s cabin, gave three cheers for the _Jeannette_, sent an
embassy of two into the wardroom to wish us all a Happy New Year, and
then hastily beat a retreat to the berth deck to warm up on those four
bottles.

This evidently so heartened the crew that after their New Year’s dinner
(mince pie and brandy once more) they staged an entertainment, the
high lights of which were Aneguin imitating Ah Sam singing over his
kettles, and a prompt and contemptuous imitation by Ah Sam of an Indian
attempting to imitate a Chinaman, which performance brought down the
house.

This comic relief for a brief while took our thoughts off what our
more sober senses looked forward to with misgivings in contemplating
1880. Under our noses, so to speak, as we emerged from the crew’s
entertainment to the deck, was the unpleasant discovery that the
mercury in our thermometers had frozen at -40° F., unobtrusively
suggesting thereby that what we had so far seen of Arctic temperatures
was merely an introduction to what was yet to come.

A second more disquieting situation was that Danenhower’s eye
inflammation had grown worse. The doctor had that day been forced to
put him on the sicklist, confining him to his room in absolute darkness
because the slightest light falling on his eye caused severe pain.
Aside from the fact that the loss of his services threw an added load
on the remaining officers—the captain, Chipp, and myself—in carrying on
the ship’s work, his condition gave us real cause for worry. In case
the ship went out from under us, leaving us stranded on the ice, there
was a blinded and a helpless officer on our hands to care for, probably
requiring to be dragged every inch on a sled, for it was as much as
even a man with two perfectly good eyes could do to get over that rough
pack without breaking his neck every few steps.

What had caused Danenhower’s eye troubles? All of us, from the first
day we were caught in the pack until the sun in November vanished for
good, had religiously worn snow goggles, for the glare off the ice was
intolerable to face. Why had Danenhower, the youngest regular officer
we had and physically by far the most powerful member of the wardroom
mess, been knocked out by eye failure when neither forward nor aft had
anybody else in the ship’s company been so much affected? Puzzling over
that, I could conclude only that it was an unfortunate combination
of his job and his personal characteristics functioning under very
unfavorable circumstances. Dan was navigator. Innumerable times he
stood under terrible conditions of cold, straining his eyes through
his sextant, trying to get with poor horizons (or with an artificial
mercury horizon) shots at the sun, the moon, or the stars to establish
our position as we drifted with the pack. That was bad enough, but what
apparently was worse was that Dan was the most painstaking and the most
indefatigable worker over account books I ever saw aboard ship. In
addition to being navigator, he was our supply officer, and hour after
hour he had pored over coal reports and storeroom records, figuring and
refiguring, trying to keep track of and account for each pound of coal
used, almost each ounce of flour expended. Under the poor lamplight
by which since early November he had worked continuously, the load on
his eyes, already overstrained by constant squinting through sextant
telescopes, proved too much and an inflammation enveloped his left eye,
shortly developing into an abscess which threatened to blind that eye
completely and even involve the other one. The result was that in a
desperate effort to save his sight, the doctor was forced to make Dan
a prisoner, forbidden (except when completely blindfolded, he was led
out for meals) to leave the darkness of his room. And few prisoners
in history, regardless of the horrors of their medieval dungeons,
ever had a worse outlook to face than Danenhower in his pitch-black
cell—small, damp, chilly, and with always the rumbling and screeching
of the pack to remind him that any day the unseen walls of his prison
might collapse and the prison itself sink from under him, leaving him
helpless on the ice.

Over all of us, his shipmates, Danenhower’s disaster threw a pall
of gloom that New Year’s Day. Over De Long, who felt a special
responsibility for each man in the ship’s company, it fell like a
blight, evoking apparitions for 1880 of calamities yet undreamed of.

So ended our holiday season—a dismal Christmas and a worse New Year’s,
leaving us with the temperature starting downward from -40° F. to face
whatever new the pack had to offer.

January drew along, bringing gales, biting clouds of flying ice
particles, and deeper cold. The ice, getting denser and denser as it
grew colder, shrank, and about the middle of the month cracked open,
forming little canals on both sides, leaving us in a small island of
ice hardly a shiplength across. We contemplated that dubiously, for
if any pressure came from the pack about us, now forty inches thick,
we would receive almost directly the thrust of the pressing floes
with no protection at all. But luckily no pressure came before the
extraordinary cold rushed to our rescue by freezing the water which
welled up in the fissures. The first half of the month, therefore, went
by with only the usual monotonous groaning and rumbling of the pack and
occasional nips on our hull to keep us in mind of our position.

January 19, 1880, was on the other hand a red letter day for us. In
the silence following the subsidence of a gale which was in no way
worse than many another we had experienced, for no reason apparent to
us the floe into which we were frozen began early in the morning to
crack and split in every direction. Promptly the anchor watch sent word
below, and as usual, we all came tumbling up on deck, there to remain
stockstill in our tracks as awestruck we watched in the unearthly half
twilight of the Arctic a sight entirely new to us.

North, south, east, or west, it was the same. In a large circle
surrounding the ship, the surface of the pack was everywhere heaving up
into a ring of rugged mountains high above the level of the sea! Huge
masses of ice, large as ocean liners, pitched and rolled on the crests,
while reverberating from all about came a shrieking and a screeching
from the tumbling ice that froze the very marrow in our bones. Like
the jaws of a slowly closing vise, that circle drew in on us—ahead,
astern, on either beam—whichever way we looked there was an approaching
mountain of ice steadily, relentlessly advancing on the _Jeannette_
across the small expanse of yet unbroken pack, while on that undulating
ring with cracks streaking across it like forked lightning, the floes
parted with roars like thunder, forming a deep bass background for the
“high scream” of the flintlike ice of grating floebergs, the whole
echoing across the pack to us in a veritable devil’s symphony of
hideous sounds.

The ring was still a quarter of a mile away.

On the bridge, Captain De Long, eyeing it, cupped his hands to try to
make himself heard above the din, bellowed to those on the spar deck
below,

“All hands! Stations for abandon ship!”

Listlessly we moved to our stations abreast the loaded sledges on the
poop, but what could we do? Enclosed on all sides by that shrinking
circle of tumbling ice, where could we go for safety when we abandoned
ship? Even unincumbered by sledges or knapsacks there was not a chance
in the world of scaling the slopes of those moving mountains of ice
against the stream of floebergs cascading down their sides. Flight was
impossible, annihilation certain!

Dunbar was by my side. With a seagoing eye he scanned the little plain
of unbroken pack still surrounding us, then muttered,

“That ice is approaching us at the rate of a fathom a minute. It’s
still sixty fathoms off. In sixty minutes, chief, we’ll all pass over
to the Great Beyond!”

Apparently he was right. Motionless, silent for the most part, we
stood, clinging to our useless sledgeloads of pemmican. That terrifying
ring, irresistible, inexorable, shrank in on us. Numbly we waited for
that avalanche of ice to come tumbling aboard, crushing us like flies,
crushing our ship.

On it came. Fifty fathoms, forty fathoms, thirty fathoms. Then as
inexplicably as the motion had started, it stopped, a shiplength or
so away, leaving us after an hour of looking death squarely in the
face, limp, completely drained of emotions, and incredulous almost
of being still alive. Slowly the hills of ice flattened out, there
remaining around us an indescribable “Bad Lands” of broken floes; and
the shrieking died away into a strange quiet except for the rumble of
underrunning floes bumping along in the current beneath our pack. It
was over, we were safe, our vessel undamaged. Yet had the ship been a
few hundred feet in any direction from the exact spot in which she lay,
she would inevitably have been lost, and we with her.

Feeling like men reprieved when the noose had been tightened about our
throats and the trap all but sprung, we left the poop slowly, noticing
for the first time how cold we were. But in spite of that, curious to
examine at still closer range the danger we had so narrowly escaped,
all hands except those on watch clambered down the starboard gangway
to the ice and were soon dispersed among the nearest slopes, climbing
the pinnacles, gazing in awe at some of the nearer floebergs standing
upended from the pack, and speculating on the results had this or that
colossal berg capsized on our vessel.

On the _Jeannette_, five bells struck. It was 10:30 A.M., the time for
serving out the daily allotment of coal for the galley, the heating
stoves fore and aft, and the distillers. Regretfully I turned my back
on the marvelous vista of ice peaks and canyons stretching before me,
and with a frozen nose, bleary eyes, and a beard white with frost
from my heavy breathing, started stiffly back to the ship. I wanted
to make sure that young Sharvell, the most inexperienced of my four
coalheavers, whose turn it was to break out the coal from the bunkers,
was not imposed upon either by the guile of that Chinaman, Ah Sam, or
the bullying of the bosun into passing out a pound more of our precious
fuel than was allotted them by my orders.

I climbed the gangway, crossed the deck to the machinery hatch, and was
halfway down the ice-covered iron ladder, just turning on the middle
grating to descend into the fireroom, when in that darkness, as if the
devil were after him, a man came bounding up the ladder, rammed me in
the stomach, and nearly ricocheted me off the grating to the fireroom
floor below. I saved myself only by grabbing his arm as he shot by.
But to my surprise, instead of stopping, he struggled to tear loose
and continue on his way. In the gloom, I peered at him. It was little
Sharvell, my coalheaver, apparently badly frightened, his rolling
eyeballs and pallid face startlingly white against the smudges of coal
dust on his forehead. Well, I was no doubt as white, having just had my
wind completely knocked out by his carelessness, and I was mad besides.
I tightened my grip on him.

“You clumsy cow,” I gasped, “wait a minute there! What d’ye mean by—”

The next I knew, I was talking to myself. Sharvell, twisting free, was
racing up the ladder.

Thoroughly enraged now, I shouted after him,

“Damn you! Come back here!”

But Sharvell did not come back, he kept on climbing. The thought,
however, of coming back penetrated his fright enough to loosen his
tongue, for he yelled down to me,

“On deck, quick, chief, while you got a chance! The ship’s sinking! The
fireroom’s flooded already!”




CHAPTER XIX


The _Jeannette_ sinking? Sharvell must be crazy. The ship had gone
through far worse squeezes before without a leak. Nevertheless,
forgetting our encounter, I raced down the ladder. There was the
fireroom entirely flooded from port to starboard, with water already
over the floorplates and rising steadily toward my empty boilers!

For a second I stared in cold dismay. No steam on the ship to run a
pump. If the water rose over our furnaces before we got our fires going
and steam up, there would never be any steam—and we were through! Once
the water got that high, nothing under Heaven could prevent the ship
from filling at her leisure and sinking from under us. I had to get
steam and get it fast!

On deck, Sharvell had already spread the alarm. Even as I watched the
rising water, sizing up my procedure, estimating my chances of getting
steam before the water got us, overhead I heard the noise of running
feet, guns being fired to recall the men on the ice, the shrill piping
of the bosun, and Jack Cole’s stentorian call,

“Man the pumps!”

Man the pumps? Why man them? There in the engine room a little abaft
me, their bases already in the water, were my frost-covered pumps.
What they imperatively needed in those frozen cylinders was steam, not
manning. Then it came to me. The _Jeannette_ was a sailing ship as well
as a steamer—she still carried hand pumps, the same crude hand pumps
with which Columbus had kept his leaky caravels afloat. And they might
save us too; keep the water down below the level of my furnace grates
till I raised steam!

And now came action. Down the ladder to join me slid my black gang—Lee,
machinist; Bartlett, fireman; all my assortment of coalheavers—Boyd;
Lauterbach, the German; Iversen, the Swede; and even that frightened
little Englishman, Sharvell. In the biting cold of the fireroom, 29°
below zero (it was 45° below outside), I hastily detailed them.

“Lee! Get aft into the engine room and line up the main steam pump to
suck on this fireroom as soon as you get steam!”

“Bartlett! Outboard there with you! Open the port sea cock and flood
the port boiler to the steaming level. Open her wide, and four bells on
that flooding!”

“Lauterbach! Get some kindling wood down here from the galley! Shake it
up now, and mind you keep that kindling dry! And while you’re on the
topside, tell the skipper I’m firing up the port boiler!”

“Iversen, you and Sharvell start breaking out the coal. Get plenty, and
keep it in the buckets, out of this water!”

“Boyd! Spread the fuel in both furnaces in the port boiler as fast as
it comes to you, and get an oil torch going, ready to light off when
the water’s up to level!”

In the faint gleam of a few oil lamps in that frigid fireroom, off the
men splashed through the ice water on the floorplates, an incongruous
group for a black gang if ever there was one, as clad all in furs from
hoods to boots they stumbled away to their stations in a temperature
more suitable to the inside of a refrigerator than to a boiler room.

On deck, I heard the clatter of equipment and the banging of mauls,
Cole’s shouts, the hoarse responses of running seamen, and the curses
of Nindemann and Sweetman struggling to break out crossbars and handles
frozen to the bulkheads and rig the hand gear for working the forward
bilge pump—a tough job in that sub-zero atmosphere on the topside with
everything iron shrunk by the cold, everything wood swelled by frost
and moisture, and nothing fitting together properly as it should.

But long before they got the hand pump on deck assembled, I ran into
troubles of my own. Bartlett, wrestling with the port sea cock (I had
chosen that side because the ship being heeled to starboard, it was
the only one still showing above water), his stocky frame and brawny
shoulders straining against the wrench, sang out to me,

“This cock’s frozen, chief! I can’t get her open!”

I jumped to his aid. Together we heaved on an extension handle to the
valve wrench. No movement. I was desperate. We had to get that cock
open to the sea or we could not fill our boiler. More beef was needed
on the wrench. I looked inboard. There in the dull light of the oil
torch in his hand, before the port boiler waiting for fuel to arrive,
was big Boyd, doing nothing.

“Boyd! Lend a hand here!”

Boyd shoved his torch into the cold furnace, splashed over to us. The
three of us, fireman, coalheaver, engineer, braced ourselves against
a floor stringer, put our backs into it, heaved with all our might
against that wrench handle. The cock gave way suddenly, twisted open. I
sighed thankfully, let go the wrench.

“Watch her now, Bartlett,” I cautioned. “Wide open to the sea till the
water shows halfway in the boiler sight glass, then shut off! Careful
now; it’ll only take a few minutes. Don’t overfill her!”

But I might have spared both my thanks and my caution. Bartlett
waited a moment for the water to rush through from the sea into the
empty boiler, then feeling no vibration in the pipe to indicate flow,
stooped, pressed his ear near (but not too near) the frost-coated sea
cock, and listened carefully. Not a murmur of running water. Bartlett
lifted his head.

“No water coming through, chief.”

No water? I felt sick. Then that long disused seachest must be plugged
with ice! Frozen solid where beyond the valve it passed through our
thick wood side to the sea, totally beyond our reach for thawing out,
effectively blocking off any flow of water. We could not fill our
boiler!

I cursed inwardly. Literally we were sunk now. Caught with no steam,
boilers empty, unable to get water into them to raise steam, what good
to us now was all the coal we had saved for our exploring by that
economy? There the saved coal lay, worse than useless in the bunkers,
serving only to ballast down the ship that she might sink the faster
under us!

Thump, thump! Thump, thump!

From on deck came a welcome sound. The carpenters had at last got the
handles rigged. The hand pump was starting! With four men on each side
swaying over the bars, vigorously putting their backs into each stroke,
that steady thumping gave me new hope. If the hand pump, inefficient
though it was, could only keep the leak from gaining too fast on us, I
still had a chance! Water to fill the boiler? Why bother about the sea?
We were standing in an ocean of salt water right there in our fireroom
and more was coming in all the time! All I needed was time enough to
get a boiler full of it off the submerged floorplates into that port
kettle, and I could light off!

“Bartlett, forget that sea cock! On top of that port boiler with you
and your wrench. Open up the manhole there, then stand by the opening
to receive water in buckets! Boyd, get Sharvell and Iversen out of the
bunkers, get some buckets, and form a line to pass water up to Bartlett
as soon as he gets that manhole open!”

Bartlett scrambled over the furnace fronts and up on top of the
boiler. Boyd passed up his torch to illuminate the work, and I tossed
up a sledge hammer to help him start the bolts on the manhead. While
Bartlett labored over the bolts and Boyd and the other coalheavers
scurried through the engine room and the fireroom collecting all
the buckets, I stood a moment before the port boiler, sizing up the
situation.

Where was all that water coming from anyway? There was no sign of
damage, no sign of leak in the machinery spaces. From forward,
probably; we had got some very bad raps on the bow during the morning’s
excitement. Perhaps an underrunning floe had rammed our stern, opened
up our forepeak. If such were the case, that hand pump running on deck
forward was in the best location to hold down the water, to keep it
from rising too rapidly here amidships. I listened an instant to the
rapid _thump_, _thump_ of the oscillating handles, then caught mixed
with the noise a husky cry from the men at the pump,

“SPELL O!”

There was a break in the rhythmic thumping, a new gang stepped in
and relieved the men at the handles, then the monotonous throbbing
was resumed. SPELL O, the cry for relief, already coming from the
first gang manning the pumps! Backbreaking work that, all right. How
long could the sixteen men we had on deck, even relieving each other
frequently, keep those handles flying up and down fast enough to give
us a chance in the fireroom? Not for long could human muscles stand
that pace, I feared. It would be nip and tuck between us and the rising
water.

From atop the boiler came the banging of metal on metal and the
muffled curses of Bartlett as sprawled out in the scanty space between
boiler and deck beams overhead, he fought with sledge and wrench to
loosen the manhole bolts. Lauterbach came cautiously down the fireroom
ladder, balancing a huge armful of kindling. I motioned him to toss
it onto the grates, then to join Boyd, Iversen, and Sharvell with the
buckets. In silence, we waited below, listening to the mingled chorus
of the banging sledge hammer, the rasping screech of rusty nuts, and
the fluent profanity of Bartlett, prone on his stomach, a fantastic
fur-clad demon with his distorted face showing up intermittently in the
flickering flame of the torch, battling the boiler beneath him. No one
could help him; there wasn’t room for two men to work in those confined
quarters. And there was no use giving him any advice either. So below
we stood, straining our eyes impatiently toward Bartlett, while inch
by inch the water rose on us and the margin between water level and
furnace grates shrank. The hand pumps on deck were losing out—they had
slowed up the rise, but they could not stop it.

My chilled legs felt cramped. Instinctively, not taking my gaze off
Bartlett, I tried to flex my knees to relieve them, shifting my weight
from one foot to the other. I found I could not lift either leg.
Looking down sharply, I saw for the first time what before in the poor
light had escaped my notice—in that intense cold, far below zero,
the water was turning to slush, ice was forming here and there over
its surface, and both my feet were solidly frozen down to the iron
floorplates on which I stood!

I gripped my legs one at a time with both hands, savagely tore them
free.

“Keep moving, boys!” I warned the men in the water alongside me. “If
you stand still a minute, you’ll be frozen down!” And standing there in
that fast freezing water, at 29° below zero, I was at least thankful
for the four pairs of wool socks, the three suits of blue flannel
underwear, and the two pairs of woolen mittens which encased me under
my fur suit and boots, for otherwise by now, between cold water and
cold air, I should have been frozen stiff as a board.

Bang!

With a final blow of his sledge, Bartlett knocked free the last dog,
lifted out the boiler manhead, shouted,

“All clear, chief!”

“Start those buckets!” I ordered, but it was unnecessary. Already Boyd
had dipped the first one full, was passing it up to Bartlett, who
dashed the contents through the open manhole into the boiler, where
splashing over the frigid iron plates inside, I haven’t the slightest
doubt but that it promptly became ice.

Round and round went the buckets, Lauterbach filling, Boyd and Iversen
passing them up full to Bartlett, and little Sharvell catching the
empties as they came tumbling down the boiler front. All the men were
soon coated from head to foot with ice from the water slopping from the
buckets—only their constant stooping, rising, and twisting which kept
cracking the ice off in sheets prevented their soon accumulating so
heavy a weight of it as no man could even stagger under.

Meanwhile, as they labored, I turned to, and took Boyd’s place in
spreading fuel on the grates, preparatory to lighting off. Hastily I
scattered the kindling over the cold furnace bars, then slid several
buckets of coal out the nearest bunker door, carefully maneuvering
them through the slush and ice across the flooded floorplates to avoid
slopping the sea water which reached nearly to the tops of the buckets,
in on the coal. Seizing then a shovel, I started to heave coal into the
furnaces, an awkward job, for getting the shovel into the tops of the
upright buckets was difficult, and naturally I dared not dump the coal
out on the floorplates first. As best I could, I managed it, spreading
the coal over the kindling, a little thin at the front of the grates,
a thicker bed at the rear. That done, I leaned back on my shovel, and
alternated between watching the waterline creeping up the boiler fronts
and my men frantically passing up buckets to fill the boiler.

It was a big boiler, eight feet in diameter, and would require
innumerable buckets. Mentally I calculated it, making a rough
estimate. Nine tons of water had to be manhandled up into that boiler
to fill it properly, a thousand bucketfuls at the very least. I timed
the heavy buckets; about six a minute were going up, but the men could
hardly maintain that pace. Still, even if they could, it would take
three hours to fill that boiler to the steaming level! Long before
then, the fireboxes at the bottom of the boiler would be flooded, we
could never light off! Somehow, we had to keep the water down in the
fireroom till I got steam, or the _Jeannette_ was doomed. And her going
meant a two hundred mile retreat over the broken pack to Siberia—in mid
January at 40° or worse below zero, an absolutely hopeless journey!

“Keep ’em flying, boys!” I called out to my coalheavers, “while I lay
up on deck for help. I’ll be back here in a minute!”

Coated with ice to the waist, I clambered up the ladder, went forward
into the deckhouse. Swinging on the pump bars there, were eight
straining seamen; against the bulkhead, resting a moment, were eight
more, including even the Chinamen Ah Sam and Tong Sing. A little
forward of them was De Long, anxiously peering down a hatch into the
forepeak, while below him in that gloomy hole, Lieutenant Chipp and
Nindemann were sloshing round in deep water with a lantern, searching
for the source of our troubles.

“Where’s the leak, captain?” I asked, bending down alongside him.

De Long straightened up, intensely worried.

“We don’t know, chief; Chipp can’t find it. All he can see is that the
water’s gushing through that supposedly solid pine packing the Navy
Yard filled our bow with, as if it were a sieve. The leak’s in the
stem, down somewhere near the keel; I think our forefoot’s twisted
off.” He looked at me with haggard eyes. “We’re still holding our own
on the forepeak with the hand pump; but the men’ll break down before
long. How soon can you give us steam and help out, chief?”

I drew him aside, a little away from that squad of resting seamen, not
wishing to discourage them.

“Never, captain!” I whispered hoarsely, “unless we get help ourselves!”
Briefly I outlined our desperate position. There was no hand pump in
the fireroom, the water was gaining on us there also. “I’ve got to have
a gang to hoist water out of that fireroom by hand someway to keep it
down till my boiler’s filled and I get steam up, or we’re done for! And
it’ll take three hours yet. My gang’s all busy. Who can you spare?”

De Long gazed at me somberly.

“Except Danenhower, who’s blind, every man and officer’s working now.
But Newcomb and Collins are only collecting records in case we abandon
ship. Will they do?”

I laughed bitterly.

“Newcomb isn’t worth a damn for real work, captain; and from what
I’ve heard from Collins, you could shoot him before he’d turn to as a
seaman! Besides, two are not enough anyway. It’ll take six good men at
least, to keep ahead of that water, and then they may not do it. But
give me Cole and half of that relief gang at the pumps there and I’ll
try.”

“That’ll reduce us here to six men a shift on the pump handles,”
muttered the captain, dubiously eyeing the crew at the pump. “But we’ve
got to get steam! All right, Melville, take them. But for God’s sake,
hurry it up!”

“Aye, aye, sir!” I turned abruptly to our Irish bosun, who was nearby
supervising the pumping. “Jack, pick four men out of the gang here, any
four, and come aft with me. Shake a leg, now!” I started for the after
door in the deckhouse.

Cole grabbed Starr, a Russian and physically the strongest seaman in
our crew, off the starboard pump handle; took Manson, a burly Swede,
off the port handle to even things up, and beckoned to Ah Sam and Tong
Sing from the relief gang.

“C’mon, me byes; lay aft wid yez!” Cole marshalled his little detail
out of the compartment and slammed the deckhouse door behind them
almost before the twelve startled men left at the pump could realize
that they now had the work of all sixteen to carry on.

Close outside the deckhouse stood the barrel which received the fresh
water condensed in our distiller. That barrel was just what I needed;
distilling for the present was the least of my worries.

“Jack,” I explained briefly, “the fireroom’s flooding on us. We got
to keep that water down till I get fires started. Sling that barrel
in a bridle, rig it on a whip to the davit over the machinery hatch,
and start hoisting water out of the fireroom, four bells and a jingle!
She’s all yours now, Jack! Get going!”

Cole, a rattling good bosun if I ever saw one, needed nothing further.

“Aye, aye, sor. Lave ut to Jack!” In a moment he had that Russian, the
Swede, and the two Chinamen round the barrel, emptying it; in another
second they were rolling it aft; and as I started down the ladder to
the fireroom, Cole had the barrel on end again and already was expertly
throwing a couple of half hitches in a manila line round it to serve as
a sling.

Almost before I got down the ladder to my fireroom again, the barrel
came tumbling down the hatch at the end of a fall and landed alongside
me with a splash, while above, Cole roared out,

“Below there! She’s all yours! Fill ’er up!”

Being nearest, I tipped the barrel sidewise in the water, pushed it
down till it submerged, then righted it. It filled with a gurgle,
settled through the slush to the floor plates.

“Full up!” I shouted. “Take it away!”

“Aye, aye!” The line to the barrel tautened, then started slowly to
rise. Down the hatch floated Cole’s voice, encouraging his squad on the
hoisting line,

“Lay back wid yez, Rooshian! Heave on it, ye Swede! An’ git those
pigtails flyin’ in the breeze, ye two Chinks, or we’ll all be knockin’
soon at the Pearly Gates, an’ fer sailor min the likes of us, wid
damned little chanct to get past St. Peter! Lively wid yez; all
togither now. Heave!”

The loaded barrel suddenly shot up the hatch.

Hurriedly Cole swung it over to the low side scuppers, dumped it, and
sent it clattering down again. Once more I filled it, started it up,
then called Lee, my machinist, from the engine room pump to stand by on
that filling job while I went back to the all-important boiler.

Why go into the agony of the next two hours? Wearily, without relief,
my men heaved water, ice, slush, whatever the flying buckets scooped
up, indiscriminately into the yawning void inside that boiler; just
as wearily, with aching shoulders, Cole and his little group labored,
unrelieved and unshielded from the bitter cold on deck, heaving that
barrel up and down; while from the deckhouse, the more and more
frequent cries of SPELL O! showed that at the undermanned pump, backs
were fast giving way under that inhuman strain.

And in spite of all, I could see that we were going to lose. Another
hour yet to fill the boiler to the steaming level, but from the rate
with which the flood waters were still rising, in another hour it
would be too late—the water would be over the grates. Hoping against
hope that perhaps I was wrong, that perhaps the water was going into
that kettle faster than I thought, I crawled myself to the top of the
boiler. Keeping as clear of Bartlett as the scant space allowed, not
to slow up the stream of buckets, I seized the torch and in between
the dumping of those cumbersome buckets peered through the ice-rimmed
manhole into that Scotch boiler. As I feared. The upper tubes down
there were still uncovered; the crown sheets of the furnaces were
still perhaps a foot above the level of the slush (I could hardly call
it water) line. As I looked, Bartlett, sprawled out beside me, sent
another bucketful splashing through the manhole, which soaked my beard
and almost immediately froze it into a solid mass. But I hardly noticed
it, staring with leaden eyes into that still half-empty boiler. With a
sinking heart, I slid away on the ice-coated cylinder from the manhole,
and crawled down the breechings to stand once again on the thickening
ice covering the flooded floorplates.

Dare I fire up without waiting further?

I was in a terrible predicament. To light fires under a partly filled
boiler like that, with tubes and furnace plates not wholly covered
with water, was not only the surest way to a courtmartial which
would probably end my naval career, it violated also every tenet in
my engineer’s code, violated every principle of safety, practically
insured a boiler explosion! But if I did not get fires going right
away, I would never have a chance to fire up, and not only that boiler
but the ship herself and all her crew besides would vanish in that
Arctic ice.

I must risk whatever came.

With flying buckets and tumbling barrel splashing and spilling water
all around me, I applied a match to another oil torch, fanned it a
moment in the chilly air till it blazed brightly, shoved it (in the
narrow space still remaining between the flood waters and the grate
bars) into the inboard furnace under the kindling, till the wood took
fire and then hurriedly transferred it to the outboard furnace until
that also lighted off. The extreme cold of the outside air favored
me, creating a tremendous draft as soon as a little warm air filled
the flues, and in no time at all it seemed, the wood was blazing up
fiercely and igniting the coal which, shining brightly down through
the grate bars onto the water flooding the lower part of the ash-pits,
cast a lurid red glare out into the dark fireroom, evidently putting
new life into the drooping sailors, for both below and on deck, a
ragged cheer greeted that crimson glow.

“Keep that water going, lads; we haven’t won yet!” I warned, flinging
open the furnace doors and heaving in more coal. “We’ve got to get
that water level up over the crown sheets before they get red hot, or
we’re all going straight to hell! Twice as fast now on those buckets!”
And whatever it was, fear or hope, that inspired those coalheavers, a
moment before ready to drop from utter exhaustion, the buckets started
to fly faster than ever.

I finished heaving coal, slammed to the fire doors, and leaned back on
my shovel. I was in for it now. Never in the history of steam, before
nor since, has a boiler been fired under such weird conditions—furnaces
half-flooded, no water showing in the sight glasses, slush and ice for
what charge there was, and the boiler manhead still off! But I was
relying on some of those very dangers to save my bacon—till I put the
manhole cover back, there could be no pressure to cause real trouble;
and till we had melted down and warmed up that ice and slush, I counted
on that chilly mixture and the water still splashing in to soak up heat
so rapidly as to keep the bare tubes and exposed crown sheets from
getting red hot and collapsing.

My other fears I need hardly go into—the dangers of bringing up steam
suddenly in a cold boiler instead of gradually warming up first for
twelve hours as was usual; of frozen gauge glasses; of frozen feed
pumps—all these I deliberately put out of my mind. Only one thing
counted now—to get some steam at any cost whatever before the water
reached the grate bars and flooded out my fires.

And we did. With only a few inches left to go, came at last from
Bartlett the long-awaited cry,

“The crown sheet’s covered now, chief!”

“On with that manhead!” I roared back.

The clanking of Bartlett’s sledge hammer, breaking away the ice round
the manhole so the cover would fit, was my only answer. The worn-out
coalheavers dropped their buckets, rested for the first time in hours,
sagging back against the boiler fronts to keep from dropping into the
icy water. No time for that. I seized a slice bar, started savagely to
slice the fire in the outboard furnace, sang out,

“Boyd, get busy with another slice bar on that inboard fire!
Lauterbach, relieve Lee on filling that barrel! Lee, get back to your
pump now! And, Sharvell, you and Iversen, get into those bunkers and
break out some more coal! Come to life now, all of you!”

Boyd, nearly dead from his half of heaving up over eight tons of water,
staggered over to my side, gripped a slice bar. Together we labored
over the fires, forcing them to the limit, nursing in more coal without
deadening the blaze, till helped by an amazing draft from the stack, we
had them roaring like the very flames of hell itself. Never have I seen
such fires!

Leaving the stoking job now wholly to Boyd, I dropped my slice bar and
stepped back to examine the gauge glasses. Water was barely showing
in the sight glass, but, thank God, it was showing! And the needle of
the pressure gauge was starting to flutter off the zero pin. Steam was
coming up! If we could only hold down the flood for a few minutes more
now, till I could get that pump warmed up and going, we were saved! But
that part was up to Jack Cole.

“Jack!” I shouted up the hatch. “A little more and you can quit. But
right now, for God’s sake, shake it up; faster with that barrel!”

“Aye, aye, sor!” Then to his strangely conglomerate crew, ready
undoubtedly to collapse in their tracks, Cole called gruffly,

“C’mon me byes! Lit’s raylly git to liftin’ now, an’ work up a sweat,
or we’ll freeze to death in this cowld! Lay back on ut, Starr! Heave
there, Manson! Wud yez have thim two Chinks outpullin’ yez? An’ step
out there now, ye Chinese seacooks, an’ don’t be clutterin’ up the
decks, or whin that Rooshian gits goin’, he’ll be treadin’ heavy on
thim pigtails! Yo heave! Up wid ut!” And with astonishing speed I saw
the loaded barrel vanish up the hatch.

I breasted my way through the water aft to where Lee in the engine room
stood by my largest steam pump. No need to worry about priming the pump
for suction; another foot higher on that flood and we would have to
go diving to reach the pump valves. I felt the steam line. The frosty
chill was gone; a little steam at least was already coming through to
the pump.

“All right, Lee; let’s get going,” I mumbled. We cracked open the steam
valve a hair, started to drain the line. And no mother nursing her baby
ever handled it more tenderly than Lee and I nursed that frozen pump,
gradually draining and warming the steam cylinder, lest the sudden
application of heat should crack into pieces that abnormally cold cast
iron, and after our heartbreaking struggle with the boiler, leave us
still helpless to eject the sea. With one eye on Jack Cole’s rapidly
moving barrel and the other on that narrowing margin between flood
water and furnace fires, I nursed the pump along by feel, taking as
long to warm it up as I dared without swamping those flames. At long
last the pump cylinder was hot; steam instead of water was blowing out
the drains. And the boiler gauge needle stood at thirty pounds. Enough;
we could go.

I straightened up, motioned Lee to start the pump. He opened the
throttle valve. With a wheeze and a groan the water piston broke free
in its cylinder, the nearly submerged pump commenced to stroke.

Leaving Lee at the pump, I ran (that is, if barely dragging one
ice-weighted foot after another can be called running) up the ladder
toward the deck. While I climbed, the empty barrel came hurtling
down the hatchway, splashed into the water in the fireroom. Before
Lauterbach could fill and upend it, down on top of the barrel in a maze
of coils came the slack end of the hoisting line. Apparently Cole’s
gang was through.

As I poked my head above the hatch into the open, there—Oh, gorgeous
sight for bleary eyes and aching muscles! was a heavy stream of water
pulsing into the scuppers! Nearby, prone on the deck where they had
dropped in their tracks when they let go the hoisting line, were
four utterly worn-out seamen, gazing nevertheless admiringly on that
beautiful stream. And leaning against the bulwark watching it, was Jack
Cole, who as he saw me, sang out,

“Praises be, chief; we’re saved! There’ll be no calls for SPELL O from
that chap!”




CHAPTER XX


Our immediate battle was won, but the war thus opened that 19th of
January, 1880, between us and the Arctic Sea for the _Jeannette_
dragged along with varying fortunes till the last day I ever saw her.

Our big steam pump made short work of all the water in the fireroom
that was still water. In an hour the room was bare down to ice-coated
floors and bilges, with the pump easily keeping ahead of the leakage
coming from forward. But the men at the hand pump, optimistically
knocked off the minute the steam pump began stroking, were
unfortunately not wholly relieved. Despite the fact that we opened wide
the gates in the forepeak and the forehold bulkheads to let the water
run freely aft to the fireroom pump, the flow through was sluggish,
impeded I suppose by having to filter through the coal in the cross
bunker. So fifteen minutes out of every hour, the hand pump was manned
again to keep down the water level in the forehold, while, sad to
contemplate, our weary seamen, between spells at the pump, had to labor
in the forehold storerooms breaking out provisions (much of which were
already water soaked) and sending them up into the deckhouse to save
our food from complete ruin.

It was ten-thirty in the morning when the leak was discovered; it
was three p.m. when I finally got steam up and a pump going; but at
midnight the whole crew was still at work handling stores. The state we
were then in was deplorable beyond description.

Who struck eight bells that night I do not know, for since morning we
had had no anchor watch, but someone, Dunbar perhaps, whose seagoing
habits were hard to repress, snatched a moment from his task and manned
the lanyard. At any rate, as the clear strokes of the bronze bell rang
out on that frost-bitten night, De Long, in water up to his knees in
the forehold, was recalled to the passage of time. The provisions
actually in the water had been broken out; his effort now was to send
up all the remainder which rising water might menace. But with the bell
echoing in his ears, the captain, looking at the jaded seamen about
him, staggering through the water laden with heavy boxes and casks,
toiling like mules, came suddenly to the realization that they had only
the limited endurance of men and called a halt.

“Knock off, lads,” he said kindly. “If anything more gets wet before
morning, it gets wet. Lay up on deck!” And on deck, as the men
straggled up the hatch to join the rest of the crew round the hand pump
(at the moment unmanned) he ordered Cole to serve out all around two
ounces of brandy each. Frozen hands poured it into chilled throats,
to be downed eagerly at a gulp—there was not a man who might not have
swallowed a whole quart just as eagerly, and probably then still have
felt but little warmth in his congealed veins.

At the captain’s order, Cole then piped down—the starboard watch to
lay below to their bunks, the port watch for whom there was to be no
immediate rest, to man the hand pump as necessary through the remainder
of that dreary night, keeping the water in the forehold down below the
level of the as yet unshifted stores. The frozen seamen tramped wearily
off, some to rest if they could, the others to bend their backs over
the bars of the pump, which soon resumed its melancholy clanking.

But neither for me, for the captain, nor for Chipp was there any rest.
Immediately I had downed my share of the brandy, I turned to at once,
figuring how I might get steam and a steam pump forward to suck
directly on the forehold and eliminate altogether the toil over the
hand pump which must soon break our men down. I had in my engine room
that spare No. 4 Sewell and Cameron pump (which my men and I had so
thoughtfully picked up in the dark of the moon at Mare Island before we
started). I set to work on a layout for installing it in the deckhouse
forward; which task, between designing foundations and sketching out
suction and steam lines for it, kept me up the rest of the night. As
for Chipp, he was down in the forepeak with Nindemann, endeavoring to
stop, or at least to reduce, the leak. The water was pouring in through
the innumerable joints in that mass of heavy pine timbers, which
stretching from side to side and from keel to berth deck in our bow,
filled it for a distance of ten feet abaft the stem. However valuable
that pine packing may have been in stiffening our bow for ramming ice,
it was now our curse, very effectively preventing us from caulking
whatever was sprung in the stem itself. All through the night Nindemann
and Chipp labored, stuffing oakum and tallow into the joints of that
packing where the jets of water squirted through. It was discouraging
work. As fast as their numbed fingers rammed a wad of oakum into a
leaking joint and stopped the flow there, water spurted from the joints
above. Methodically through the night they worked in that dismal hole
with freezing water spraying out over them, following up the leaks,
caulking joint after joint, but when at last they got to the top,
plugging oakum into the final crack, the water rose still higher and
started to pour down their necks from between the ceiling and the deck
beams overhead where they could not get to it. They could do no more.
At five a.m., each man a mass of ice, they came up, beaten.

Meanwhile, De Long, foreseeing the possibility of such a contingency,
had himself put in the rest of the night over the ship’s plans,
designing a watertight bulkhead to be built in the forepeak just
abaft that packing, so that if we could not stop the leak, we could at
least confine the flooding to a small space forward and thus stop all
pumping, either by hand or steam.

In the early morning, after twenty-four hours of continuous strain and
toil, the three of us met again in the deckhouse, I with my sketches
for the pump installation, De Long with his bulkhead plans, and Chipp
with the bad news that we had better get both jobs underway at once for
he had failed utterly to stop the leak. So we turned to.

I will not go into what we went through the week following—my struggles
with frozen lines, improper equipment, and lack of men and tools
for such a job. Suffice it to say that after three days I got that
auxiliary Sewell pump running forward so that to the intense relief of
the deck force, their torture at the hand pumps ended altogether, and
I was able to keep the water in the forepeak so low that Sweetman and
Nindemann were enabled to start building the bulkhead.

From then on, Nindemann and Sweetman bore the brunt. On these two
petty officers, Sweetman, our regular carpenter, and Nindemann, our
quartermaster (but almost as good as a carpenter) fell the entire labor
of building that bulkhead. In the narrow triangular space in the peak,
they toiled hour after hour, day after day, cutting, fitting, and
erecting the planking. William Nindemann, a stocky, thickset German,
was a perfect horse for work, apparently able to stand anything; but
Alfred Sweetman, a tall, spare Englishman, had so little flesh on
his ribs that he froze through rather rapidly, and in spite of his
objections, had to be dragged up frequently to be thawed out or he
would soon have broken down completely. As it was, every four hours
both men got a stiff drink of whiskey to keep them limbered up, and as
much hot coffee and food in between as they could swallow, which was
considerable.

Meanwhile, during all this turmoil and anxiety, the captain was weighed
down with the problem of what to do with the blinded Danenhower
should the water get away from us, either then or later. To add to
his worries, Dunbar, who was also still under the weather from his
illness, seemed between that and his efforts to assist, to have aged
overnight at least twenty years. It was pathetic to see the old man,
looking now positively decrepit, struggling in spite of the captain’s
orders to hold up his end alongside husky seamen, fighting with them
to help save the ship. And as if to make a complete job of De Long’s
mental anguish during that agonizing first day of the leak, Surgeon
Ambler was suddenly taken violently ill, and to the captain’s great
alarm had to be left in his cabin, practically unattended. Aside from
De Long’s natural concern over what might happen to Ambler himself, the
effect on the captain’s mind of this prospect of being left without a
doctor to look after Danenhower and any others who might collapse in
our desperate predicament, can well be imagined. It amazed me that the
captain under the combined impact of all these worries and disasters,
instead of caving in himself, maintained at least before the men an
indomitable appearance, by his actions encouraging them, and with never
a word of profanity, urging and cheering them on.

By the end of the ensuing week things showed signs of improvement—I had
both steam pumps going, hand pumping was discontinued, Nindemann and
Sweetman against terrible odds were making progress on the bulkhead,
Dunbar was no worse, and Ambler (whose trouble turned out to be his
liver) was under his own care, sufficiently on the mend to be no longer
in danger.

Only Danenhower, aside from our leak, remained as a problem. He,
instead of getting better, got worse.

The third day of our troubles, while I was still struggling with a
frozen steam whistle line through which I was trying to get steam
forward to start my Sewell pump, there into the glacial deckhouse
beside me came our surgeon, wan and pinched and hardly able to drag one
foot after another. I gazed at him startled. He had not been out of his
bunk since his illness.

“What’s the matter, brother?” I queried anxiously. “Why aren’t you aft
in your berth where you belong? We don’t need help; we’re getting along
here beautifully.”

“Where’s the captain?” he asked, ignoring my questions. “I want him
right away.”

“Below there,” I replied, pointing down the forepeak hatch. “He’s
inspecting the work on the bulkhead. Shall I call him for you, doc?”

Apparently too weak to speak a word more than he had to, Ambler only
nodded. A little alarmed, I poked my head down the hatch into the dark
peak tank and called out to De Long standing far below on the keelson.
He looked up, I beckoned him, and he started cautiously to climb the
icy ladder, shortly to be blinking incredulously through his frosty
glasses at Ambler, even more astonished than I at seeing him out of
bed. Ambler wasted no words in explanations regarding his presence.

“It’s Danenhower, captain. I got up as soon as I could to examine him.
His eye’s so much worse today that if I don’t operate, he’ll lose it!
So I came looking for you to get your permission first. You know how
things stand with us all.”

The captain knew, all right. It was easy to guess, looking into his
harassed eyes as Ambler talked, what was going through De Long’s
mind—a sick surgeon, poor medical facilities, a leaking ship, and the
possibility of having the patient unexpectedly thrust out on that
terrible pack to face the rigors of the Arctic, where with even good
eyes in imminent peril of freezing in their sockets at 50° below zero,
what chance for an eyeball recently sliced open? All this and more
besides was plainly enough reflected in the skipper’s woebegone eyes
and wrinkling brows. De Long thought it over slowly, then wearily shook
his head.

“I can’t give permission, doctor. It’s not Dan’s eye alone; it means
his very life if we have to leave the ship soon. And since it’s his
life against his eye we’re risking, he ought to have a voice in it.
I can’t say yes; I won’t say no. Put it up to Dan; let him decide
himself.”

“Aye, aye, sir; I’ll explain it to him.” Dr. Ambler swung about, went
feebly aft, leaving the captain and me soberly regarding each other.

“You’re dead right, captain; nobody but Dan should decide. It’s too
much of a load for another man to have on his conscience if things go
wrong.”

De Long, abstractedly watching Ambler hobbling aft, hardly heard me.
Without a word in reply, he turned to the ladder behind him, and
with his tall frame sagging inside his parka as if the whole world
bore on his bent shoulders, haltingly descended it. I looked after
him pityingly. He had brought Dan, a husky, vital young man into the
Arctic; now of all times, what a weight to have on his mind as Dan’s
life hung in the balance! Unconsciously I groaned as I turned back
to thawing out my steam line and I am afraid that my mind wandered
considerably for the next hour as I played a steam hose back and forth
along that frozen length of iron pipe.

I was still at it, and still not concentrating very well, when Tong
Sing’s slant eyes peered at me through the cloud of vapor enveloping my
head and he pulled my arm to make sure he had my attention.

“Mister Danenhower likee maybe you see him, chief.”

I shut off my steam hose, nodded to the steward, started aft. If I
could help to lighten poor Dan’s burden any, I was glad to try. But
what, I wondered, did he want of me—advice or information?

I entered Dan’s room, sidling cautiously between the double set of
blankets draping the door to shut out stray light. It was pitch-black
inside.

“That you, chief?” came a strained voice through the darkness the
minute my foot echoed on the stateroom deck.

“Yes, Dan. What is it?”

“My eye’s in horrible shape, the doctor tells me, chief. If it’s
anything like the way it hurts, I guess he understates it. What’s
happened to make it worse the last couple of days I don’t know,” he
moaned, then added bitterly, “Most likely it’s just worry. How do you
think I feel lying here useless, not lending a hand, while the rest of
you are killing yourselves trying to stop that leak and save the ship?”

I felt through the blackness for his bunk, then slid my fingers over
the blankets till I found his hand.

“Don’t let that get you, Dan,” I begged, giving his huge paw a
reassuring squeeze. “We’re making out fine with that leak. As a fact,
we got it practically licked already. It wasn’t much trouble.”

“Quit trying to fool me, chief,” pleaded Dan. “It’s no use. Maybe I
can’t see, but I can hear! So I know what’s going on around me. As
long as I hear that hand pump clanking, things are bad! And with the
skipper’s cabin right over my head and yours just across the wardroom
and me lying here twenty-four hours a day with nothing to do but
listen, don’t you think I know when you turn in? And neither of you’ve
turned in for a total of ten minutes in two nights now! Don’t try to
explain that away!”

I winced. Dan, in spite of the Stygian darkness in which he lived, had
the facts. No use glossing matters over.

“Listen, Dan, I’m not fooling you,” I answered with all the
earnestness I could muster. “It’s true we haven’t slept much, but we’re
both all right. And while things looked pretty bad at first, for a
fact, we got that leak practically licked. Before the day’s over, that
hand pump will shut down for good. Now forget us and the ship; let’s
get back to Danenhower. What can I do for you, brother?” I gave his
palm a friendly caress.

I felt Dan’s invisible hand twitch in mine, then close convulsively on
my fingers.

“I’m in a tough spot, Melville. The doctor tells me if he doesn’t
operate, I’ll go blind. And if he does, and I have to leave the ship
before my eye’s healed and he can strip the bandages, I’ll probably
die! And it’s up to me to decide which. Simple, isn’t it, chief?”
Danenhower groaned. Had I not kept my lips tightly sealed, I should
have groaned also at his pathetic question. With a lump in his throat,
he added, “I don’t want to go back blind to my f—,” he choked the
merest fraction of a second over the word, then substituting another,
I think, hastily finished—“friends, but as much as anybody here I want
to get back alive if I can. Honestly, chief, you won’t fool a blind
shipmate just to spare his feelings, will you?” He gripped my hand
fiercely. “What’re our chances with the ship? I’ve got to know!”

“The leak’s licked, Dan,” I assured him earnestly. “We won’t sink
because of that. But about what the ice is going to do to us, your
guess is as good as mine. Seeing what she’s fought off so far, I’d back
the old _Jeannette’s_ ribs to hold out against the pack for a while
yet.”

“Thanks, chief, for your opinion.” Dan pressed my hand once more, then
slowly relaxed his grip. “I guess I’ll have to think it over some more
before I decide. You’d better go now; sorry to have dragged you so long
from your work to worry you over my poor carcass.”

I said nothing, I dared not, fearing that my voice would break. With
big Dan stretched out blind and helpless on his bunk, invisible there,
to me only a voice and a groping hand in the darkness, I slipped away
silently, leaving him to grapple with the choice—to operate or not to
operate—possible death in the first case, certain blindness in the
second. And with the knowledge that however he chose, the final answer
lay, not with him, but with the Arctic ice pack. He must guess what it
had in store for the _Jeannette_ with his sight or his life the forfeit
if he guessed wrong. I went back to my own trifling problem, thawing
out the steam line.

Shortly afterward, Tong Sing came forward again, calling the captain
this time, who immediately went aft. Whether Danenhower had decided or
whether he was seeking further information, the steward did not know. I
worked in suspense for the next hour till De Long returned. One look at
his face informed me how Dan had decided.

“Well, brother, when’s the operation?”

“It’s over already, Melville! Successful too, the doctor says. I
watched it and helped a bit. And, chief, I hardly know which to admire
most—the skill and speed with which Ambler, weak as he was, worked, or
the nerve and heroic endurance with which Dan stood it. He’s back in
his stateroom now, all bandaged again. God grant the ship doesn’t go
out from under us before those bandages are ready to come off!”

Well, that was that. With a somewhat lighter heart, I resumed blowing
steam on my frozen line. De Long crawled back into the forepeak to
resume his study of the leak.

But my happier frame of mind did not last. If it was not one thing on
the _Jeannette_ to drive us to distraction, it was a couple of others.
The captain soon squirmed back through the hatch with a long face to
join me again beside the deck pump.

“How much coal have we got in our bunkers, now, chief?” he asked.

“Eighty-three tons and a fraction,” I answered promptly. I felt that I
knew almost every lump of coal in our bunkers by name, so to speak.

“And what are we burning now?” he continued.

“A ton a day, captain, to run our pumps and for all other purposes, but
as soon as that bulkhead’s finished and the leak’s stopped, we ought to
get down to 300 pounds again, our old allowance.”

De Long shook his head sadly.

“No, chief, we never will. The way the ship’s built, I see now we’ll
never get that bulkhead really tight; she’s going to keep on leaking
and we’re going to keep on pumping. But a ton of coal a day’ll ruin us!
By April, at that rate, the bunkers’ll be bare. Can’t you do something,
anything, to cut down that coal consumption?”

I thought hastily. Our main boiler, designed of course for furnishing
steam to propel the ship, was far bigger than necessary just to run
a couple of pumps, and consequently it was wasteful of fuel. If
pumping, instead of lasting only a few days more, was to be our steady
occupation, I ought to get some setup more nearly suited to the job.
Before me in the deckhouse was the little Baxter boiler I had rigged
for an evaporator. That might run the forward pump. And looking
speculatively aft through the deckhouse door, my eye fell on our
useless steam cutter, half buried in a mound of snow and ice covering
its cradle on the poop. There was a small boiler in that cutter.
Perhaps I could remove it, rig it somehow to run a pump in the engine
room. And then I might let fires die out under the main boiler again
and do the job with less coal.

Briefly I outlined my ideas to the captain, who, willing to clutch at
any straw, gave blanket approval to my making anything on the ship over
into what I would, so long as it promised to save some coal.

“Good, brother,” I promised. “As soon as I get this pump running and
knock off the hand pump, I’ll turn to with the black gang and try to
rig up those small boilers so we can shut down that big coal hog. And
even if we have to hook up Ah Sam’s teakettle to help out on the steam,
we’ll get her shut down; you can lay to that!”

“I’m sure you will, chief,” answered De Long gratefully. “Now is there
any way we can help you out with the deck force?”

“Only by plugging away on those leaks, captain. We’re making 3300
gallons of salt water an hour in leakage; every gallon of that you plug
off means so much more coal left in the bunkers.”

“I well appreciate that, Melville. Nindemann and his mate are doing
what they can with the bulkhead; I’m starting Cole and the deck watch
to shoving down ashes and picked felt between the frames and the
ceilings in the forepeak to stop the flow of water there. We’ll get
something on that leak, I don’t know yet how much, but we’ll never get
her tight. I see that now.”

And De Long, looking (though he tried to conceal it) as if that sight
were breaking his heart, crawled back again to the freezing forepeak. I
felt strongly tempted to seize him by the arm and start him instead for
his bunk, but I was afraid he would urge the same on me and I had to
get that line thawed and the Sewell pump going forward before I knocked
off, so I let him go.




CHAPTER XXI


January dragged away, followed in dreary succession by February, March,
and April, and the _Jeannette_ drifting aimlessly with the pack, was
still solidly frozen in. Our lives were only a wearing repetition of
what had gone before—fierce cold, alarms, the roaring and tumbling
of the ice pack, tremendous squeezes and pressures from the floes,
and night and day the wheezing of the steam pumps, pumping, forever
pumping. It seemed almost a reasonable supposition to conclude that
we must have the whole Arctic Ocean nearly pumped dry to judge by the
length of time we had been at it and by the huge masses of ice banked
up against our bulwarks and spreading out over the floes where the
streams of sea water flowing from our scuppers had frozen.

A few minor triumphs and reliefs we had, but not many. In late January
the sun came back over the horizon for the first time in seventy-one
days, to reveal that we had all bleached strangely white in the long
Arctic darkness. On the mechanical side, I had succeeded, after many
heartbreaking disappointments, in supplanting the main boiler with
the two little ones; and that, aided by the never ending efforts of
Nindemann in plugging leaks (which had cut the hourly flow nearly in
half), had resulted in gradually reducing our coal consumption to only
a quarter of a ton a day. We shot a few bears and a few seals, which
gave a welcome variety to our diet of salt beef and tasteless canned
meat; we even had hopes of knocking down some birds but there we were
disappointed.

“No, Melville,” the captain gravely rebuked me, when empty-handed I
returned to the ship after a February tramp over the floes and pushed
my shotgun disgustedly into the rack, “birds have more sense than men.
No bird with a well-regulated mind would possibly trust himself out in
this temperature.”

On the debit side, the temperatures reached unbelievable depths.
57° below zero was recorded by our thermometers (the spirit ones,
for the mercurial bulbs froze solidly at around -40°). The pack ice
reached thicknesses of thirty-five and forty feet below the water
where underrunning floes, freezing together, consolidated into a kind
of glacial layer cake. Contemplation of these formations, measurable
whenever the floes near us cracked apart, gave a gloomy aspect to the
ship’s chances of ever getting free of the pack. And the irregular and
formidable surface of the pack also gave us cause for thought, now
that in the growing daylight we could see in what state the upheaval
of January 19th had left the ice around us. Sledging across the pack
was impossible; as soon might one think of getting from the Bronx to
Brooklyn by dragging a team of dogs and a sledge over the Manhattan
housetops. Here and there, conditions were even worse. Sharvell, with
the impressionability of youth, came in from an exploring trip with
eyes popping to tell me,

“Say, chief, five miles north o’ ’ere, the ice is standing in mountains
’igher nor our mast’eads!”

“Yes, Sharvell, it’s quite likely.”

“Shall I tell the skipper, sir, or will you?” he asked anxiously.

“Why bother him about it?”

“If ’e knew, it’d save work, sir. ’E’d quit ’aving the bug’unter clean
an’ mount that big walrus ’ead with the tusks that ’e’s so busy fixing
up. ’Cause when that ice gets to us, sir, we’re through, an’ it’ll be
a terrible lot o’ work for us sailors dragging that ’eavy walrus ’ead
over the pack. ’E better quit now, an’ ’e will, sir, when I tells ’im
abaht them mountains of ice!”

But I told Sharvell to forget it, for I doubted that with all his other
worries, the captain would be much exercised over mountains five miles
off.

Aside from the aspect of the ice, we had troubles closer home.
Especially forward in the deckhouse and crew spaces, the inside of the
ship which now we had to keep above the freezing point to save our
pumps from damage, was damp and disagreeable beyond expression, with
moisture condensing on all cold surfaces and dripping from the beams
into the men’s bunks.

Finally to deepen our gloom, Danenhower failed to respond favorably to
treatment, and the doctor had to perform several more operations on his
eye, coming at last to the conclusion that Dan must, till we escaped
from the ice, remain a chronic invalid confined in darkness to his
cabin, with no great hope of saving his sight even should he then get
back to happier surroundings and decent hospital facilities.

Oddly enough through all this, after the first week’s struggle with
the leak, we continued our scientific and meteorological observations.
The captain clung to that routine as to a lifeline, which perhaps to
him mentally it was, constituting his solitary claim to conducting a
scientific expedition. For of explorations and geographical discoveries
there were none; on the contrary instead of a steady drift northward
which might uncover new lands or at least get us to higher latitudes,
we shuffled aimlessly about with the pack, occasionally drifting
northward for some weeks to De Long’s obvious delight, only to have
the drift then reversed and to his intense depression of spirits, to
turn out some clear morning to find himself gazing once again across
the pack at the familiar mountainous outline of the north side of
distant Wrangel Land. But after March, even this sight of far-off land,
depressing as it was from its associations, was denied us, for as
the season advanced the pack, still zigzagging over the polar sea as
aimlessly as ever, failed to get quite so far south again; from that
time on we saw land no more and the world for us became just one vast
unbroken field of broken ice.

Only one hope kept us going. No one really knew what happened to that
moving pack in summer time—no one before us had ever wintered in it,
involuntarily or otherwise. So we lived on in the expectation that
as the days lengthened and the thermometer rose above zero, summer
weather and the long days under the midnight sun would sufficiently
melt the ice to break up the pack, and if by then we still had any
coal left, permit us to do some little exploring northward before with
bare bunkers we loosed our sails and in the early fall laid our course
homeward.

In that spirit then, we cheerfully greeted the advent of May, and as
if to justify our confidence, May Day burst upon us with gorgeous
weather—no clouds, and glistening at us across the ice a brilliant sun
which even at midnight still peeped pleasantly over the horizon, and a
temperature which in mid-afternoon reached the unbelievable height of
30° F., only two degrees below freezing. We were positively hot. All
hands (except of course Danenhower) turned out on the ice to bask in
the sunshine, with the queer result that many of us came back aboard
with our complexions sunburned to a fiery red and unable at first to
believe it. Our hopes started to mount; if the sun could do that to
such weather-beaten frost-bitten hides as ours, what would it not do to
the ice imprisoning us? Release was seemingly just around the corner of
the calendar—by June 1 at the outside, say.

But meanwhile, awaiting that happy event, the captain prudently ordered
(lest more casualties go to join the luckless Danenhower) that snow
goggles be worn on all occasions by all hands except when actually
below on the ship.

So May moved along, made notable mainly by a positive flood of bears,
which daily kept us on the jump. The bears, ravenous with hunger after
a long winter, were attracted to the _Jeannette_ by mingled scents,
mainly canine, which to their untutored nostrils probably meant
food. But we had long since lost any fear of ice bears and the dogs
apparently never had any, so the cry of—

“Bear ho!”

was the immediate signal for whoever had the captain’s permission
(which now meant practically anyone off watch) to seize a rifle from
the rack placed conveniently at the gangway, and be off. We became so
contemptuous of the bears, that we chased them even with revolvers, and
if necessity had arisen, would no doubt have done so barehanded, for
I have never seen a bear which would rush a man. Except when brought
to by the dogs, with a man in sight all that ever interested the bear
was to get behind the nearest hummock or into an open lead, where
swimming with only his nose above water, he could escape the rain of
bullets from our Remingtons and Winchesters. The vitality of the bears
was amazing. Unless filled so full of lead that the mere weight of the
bullets as ballast slowed them down enough for the dogs to bring them
to a stand where a close range shot into the brain finished them off,
they usually got away.

We had queer experiences with the bears. On one occasion, exploring
one of the narrow leads in the pack about a quarter of a mile from the
ship, the captain was sculling unconcernedly along in the dinghy when
he found himself facing an ice bear not a hundred feet off. Wholly
unarmed, De Long regarded the bear with dismay. He could not run, for
over broken ice he was no match in speed for Ursus; besides he was
in a boat, which prevented running away, for while the water was an
obstacle to him, to the bear it was merely the most convenient means
of transportation. Inquisitively the bear advanced; De Long, unable to
do anything else, sat and stared, trying out the power of the human eye
as a defence. The bear, only fifty feet off, still approached, sniffing
curiously and De Long, short-sighted though he was, said he could
clearly make out where the short hairs ended at the edge of the bear’s
beautiful black nose. The captain quickly concluded there was nothing
in hypnosis as applied to polar bears. So gripping his oar, prepared to
fend off the bear should he approach closer to the boat, he sang out
lustily,

“Ship there! A bear! A bear!”

At this, the bear, more puzzled than ever, sat down on the ice to
contemplate De Long and was still seriously thinking him over, trying
to make him out, when a pack of dogs hove into sight from under the
_Jeannette’s_ stern, followed by several seamen, and off lumbered the
bear.

So long as we had the _Jeannette_ under us, the plethora of bears meant
at most only a break in the monotony of our existence and a welcome
change in our salt beef diet. Should we have to abandon ship, however,
they offered a ray of hope. For convinced now that we could never drag
across the upheaved pack pemmican enough to keep us from starvation
till we reached Siberia, we looked on the bears as a possible source of
fresh meat on the hoof which we might with a little luck knock over as
we went along and thus keep life in our bodies.

The only other springtime event to compare with the bears was a
brilliant idea which struck De Long.

While he never discussed his family with me or with anyone, De Long,
alone among the ship’s company which had sailed from San Francisco,
had a wife and a child to occupy his thoughts. I have no doubt that
frequently in the dreary months when I saw him, as I did one morning,
abstractedly gazing out over the pack, his mind was far away from us,
perhaps dwelling on that moment in the tossing whaleboat off the Golden
Gate when Emma De Long had to the last possible instant clung round his
neck in her farewell kiss. Drifting backward down the years from that,
his thoughts on this morning evidently got to the days of his youth as
an ensign aboard the U.S.S. _Canandaigua_. While cruising through the
Channel ports, he had amongst the dikes and mills of northern France
and Holland courted Emma Wotton, and as he thought of that landscape,
so different from the ice-fields round the _Jeannette_, his keen mind
saw a connection. He waved me to join him.

“Melville,” he asked, obviously off again on the one ever-present
topic, coal, “what’ll you do to keep your pumps going when the coal’s
all gone?”

I pointed aloft.

“Cut down our masts and spars and burn them,” I replied. “They’re
useless anyway.”

“And when they’ve gone too, what then?” De Long’s clear blue eyes gazed
at me fixedly, as if he had me there.

“Break up our bulwarks, the deckhouses, and the main deck, and shove
those into the fires too. They’ll all burn fine.”

“And after that, what?” he asked relentlessly, puffing away on his
ever-present pipe.

“I guess then we abandon what’s left of the _Jeannette_ and take to
the ice, captain. I’ll admit I can’t keep any boilers going while I’m
cutting the foundations out from under them for firewood. When the main
deck’s gone, I guess we’re through.”

De Long looked gravely at me through his glasses, bent his head a
little to shield his pipe from the cold wind sweeping the deck, and
irrelevantly asked me,

“Melville, have you ever been in Holland?”

“Why—yes,” I mumbled, taken aback at his sudden change of front. “I
guess it’s tulip time there now, captain. And quite a different scene
from all this ice that’s sprouting round us in the merry springtime
here. Why?”

“I was there in the springtime once also,” parried the captain. “Lovely
scene. I just wonder if we couldn’t make the scenery round here
resemble Holland in the springtime a little better. You remember the
tulips, eh, chief? Do you by any chance remember anything else in the
Dutch landscape—some windmills, for instance?”

And then a great light dawned on me. I looked at my captain with added
respect. What did the Dutch have all those thousands of windmills for
except to meet the same problem we faced—to pump water!

“Ah, you see it, do you?” asked the captain, gratified. “Melville, can
you rig up a windmill here to run our pumps?”

“Can do, brother!” I exclaimed enthusiastically. “I’ll turn to on it
right away; before long you’ll see a windmill going round here in the
Arctic to beat the Dutch!”

This job was rather intricate for our facilities, windmills not being
exactly in a sailor’s line, but aided by Lee, machinist, and Dressler,
blacksmith, we contrived it. Lee especially was a great help, which
might seem somewhat surprising, for having been shot through both hips
in the second day’s fighting while helping Grant drive back Beauregard
at Shiloh, Lee was rather slow and unsteady on his feet. But there was
nothing the matter with his hands and he soon had Dressler’s crude
forgings turned up in our lathe into a crankshaft and connecting
rods, so that by the time Sweetman had made the wooden arms of the
windmill, we were ready to go. Paradoxically, the one thing which on
a ship we were best prepared to furnish, the sails themselves, failed
to work well on our first trial. The mill occasionally hung on the
center because the heavy canvas sails sagged too much to hold the
wind. Chipp, responsible for making the sails, watched them in pained
silence, but having no canvas more suitable, soon rectified the matter
in a novel manner. Sending Noros and Erichsen down on the ice, he had
them collect some dozens of the empty meat cans littering the ice
floes, and beating these out flat, he laced them together with wire,
and soon had our mill-arms covered with fine metal sails! Impelled by
these, our windmill, mounted on the starboard wing of the bridge, was
soon rotating merrily and, connected by a special rig to a bilge pump
in the fireroom, was pushing overboard in grand style all our leakage.
So well did it work, that we quickly were enabled to shut down the
steam cutter’s boiler, leaving only the little Baxter boiler going for
distilling and in case the wind died down (which in the pack it rarely
did) for unavoidable steam pumping.

So to our intense relief as spring drew on to its close, we got our
coal consumption down again to 300 pounds a day, as it had been before
that leak started to chew into our bunkers in such ravenous fashion.
Which was a very fortunate thing for us, for with only sixty tons of
coal left to go on, our days on the _Jeannette_ would indeed otherwise
have been numbered. Not least among the blessings which resulted was
the improved cheerfulness of De Long at this success. He once more
began to have some hope that when the ice broke up, we would have coal
enough to do some exploring, so that he might again without too much
shame on his return face our sponsor’s sister, Miss Bennett, the ship’s
godmother, the “Jeannette” whose name we bore.

As the long days dragged out under the May sun, we eagerly watched
the floes, noting with satisfaction the increasing number of rivulets
coursing toward every crack and hole in the pack, and how under the
intense sunlight, the cinders and ashes about the ship fairly seemed
to burrow their way down into the snow. (Watching the striking manner
in which everything dark soaked up the sunshine and settled, De Long
half-humorously suggested that we all take a day off and pray for some
miracle which might make all the snow and ice about us black and thus
hasten its disappearance.)

And so we came to May 31, to our discouragement still held in the
unbroken pack which, as measurements close about us showed, was still
four feet thick. We decided to defer the day of our liberation to July
1, giving the sun another month to work on the ice. But to damp our
spirits, June 1, the first day of summer as we reckoned it, opened in a
snow storm which continued through June 2 also, accompanied by a heavy
gale which drove the snow, soft and mushy now, along in horizontal
sheets.

When the snow finally ceased, the captain, optimistic again, began
to prepare for the day of our release. First of all, fires were
discontinued in the stoves fore and aft, thus saving a little coal.
Next, all hands and the cook were turned to on knocking down our
portable deckhouse and clearing the main deck, so that looking like a
ship once more, we might be able to spread sails and get underway when
the wind served (provided, of course, the ice let go of us first).
Several days’ hard work accomplished this task, and with the topside
shipshape again, we needed only to hang our rudder to be fully ready to
go, but here again we had to wait on the ice which still clung solidly
to our rudder post.

Below, I got my machinery and boilers in shape to move. With no fear of
dangerous temperatures any more, I connected up all piping, moved the
engines by hand, secured all cylinder heads, and filled both boilers
to the steaming level (through the sea cocks this time), and started
generally to clean up the machinery spaces. For a small black gang,
only six all told, this was slow work, so to avoid being caught with
the pack suddenly parting and my machinery not ready to turn over, I
pushed my gang hard. Consequently I was doubly annoyed when I noted
several times that Nelse Iversen, one of my coalheavers and ordinarily
a willing enough worker, showed decided signs of soldiering whenever
my back was turned. I cautioned Bartlett who had charge of his watch,
to get Iversen started, but after another hour, seeing he still tended
to hide in the bunkers rather than scale rusty floorplates, I yanked
Iversen up sharply for it.

“Come to now, Nelse, and get behind that scaling hammer! Or will it
take a little extra duty to keep you out of that bunker and on the job?”

Iversen, now that I got a closer look at him, looked queer in the
eyes, so when, his slow mind having digested my statement, he finally
answered, I was quite ready to believe him.

“Ay tank, chief, Ay work so hard Ay can. Ay ban sick man. My belly, she
ache bad!”

“So, eh?” I said sympathetically. “Why didn’t you tell Bartlett that an
hour ago? Go up and see the doctor right away. What ails you, diarrhoea
again?”

“No; de odder way.”

“Constipation, huh? Well, you’re lucky. On this bucket, that’s a better
thing to have than diarrhoea any day. Go up to the doctor and get some
castor oil. And don’t come back till it’s quit working.” I eased him
over toward the fireroom ladder, and started him on his way toward
Ambler.

But after a day had elapsed, I began to wonder whether the doctor’s
castor oil had somehow been affected by the cold or whether my
coalheaver had evaded swallowing his dose, for Iversen still showed
the same tendency to shirk work and hide in the bunkers in spite of
Bartlett’s frequently breaking him out of there. So taking Iversen in
hand myself, I escorted him up to the dispensary to see personally
that there was no foolishness about his taking his medicine, and
calling Tong Sing, I sent him off to find the doctor who was out on the
ice.

The minute Tong Sing disappeared, Iversen poked his head out the door,
looked both ways quickly, then as if satisfied, hastily shut the door
and to my complete bewilderment, stealthily approached me, cupped his
hands over my ear and whispered,

“Chief, Ay no ban sick, Ay ban vatched! Dere ban mutiny on foot here!”

Mutiny? I stared at Iversen incredulously. The men were having a
veritable hell in their life there in the Arctic, but what could they
gain by mutiny? And who would lead it? For an instant I had a vague
suspicion, but I resolutely put that out of my mind. Preposterous!
I looked at Iversen intently. But there could be no doubt as to his
sincerity. He was serious, all right.

I pushed him down into a chair, ordered sharply,

“Wait there, Nelse! I’ll get the captain!” and closing the door behind
me, I shot out of the dispensary and across the cabin to the captain’s
stateroom forward in the poop. Fortunately De Long was there, writing
in his journal.

“Come with me, skipper. I want you to hear something. Right away!”

Puzzled unquestionably at my haste, De Long dropped his pen, put down
his meerschaum pipe, stretched his six-foot frame up out of his chair,
and reached for his parka.

“No, you don’t need that, captain; just as you are. We’re only going to
the dispensary.”

“Oh, all right. Who’s hurt now?”

“Nobody, but come along!” I started back for the dispensary with De
Long following, puffing leisurely at the retrieved meerschaum which was
his greatest comfort and his inseparable companion.

Iversen started up from his chair as we entered, saluted the captain,
and again swiftly scanned the cabin outside before he closed the door.

“Now, Nelse, tell the captain,” I said briefly.

Once more Iversen cupped his hands, whispered into the captain’s ear.
De Long’s jaw dropped abruptly. His pipe fell from his mouth and only
by a quick lunge did I save it from hitting the deck. But insensible to
that, De Long, immovable, only stared at Iversen, searching his face as
I had done. Finally he shook his head, muttered,

“It just can’t be! Where’d you get this, Iversen?”

“Yah, cap’n. Ay tal you it ban yust lak Ay say! Ay ban asked to yoin.
Ay no say, Yah; Ay no say, No; so Ay ban vatched clost. Dey kill me
for’ard if Ay tal!”

De Long looked at me. I handed him back his pipe, which, wholly
unconscious of his action, he took.

“What do you make of this, chief? It looks serious if Iversen’s right!”

“Sounds crazy to me, but it might be so. Depends on who’s in it and how
many. The men are all armed, you know. The rifle rack’s right at the
gangway. Anybody can help himself, and lots of ’em are out on the ice,
guns in hand this minute. But why they should want to mutiny, I can’t
see, unless the ice has affected their minds.”

Shocked at Iversen’s report; impressed by the gravity of the situation
if Iversen were right, for there already with weapons in their hands
were the mutineers, the captain still looked skeptically at my grimy
coalheaver. Why should his crew mutiny? But on the other hand, what had
Iversen to gain by lying about it? And Iversen, a steady man, always
carefully attentive to his duty, was just the type of seaman who might
be trusted to stand with his captain at all hazards.

“Well,” said De Long grimly, “let’s get into this! Now, Iversen, who’s
behind it?”

But there the captain ran into a stone wall. Iversen, very nervous now,
became evasive, dodged the questions, and apparently in mortal fear
of his life, refused to name the mutineers, repeating only over and
over again how, for two days, he had been closely watched. Threats,
promises, got nothing more out of him. Finally the captain, baffled,
took a new tack.

“See here, Iversen, they can’t hurt you, and nobody else’ll get hurt
either if you tell. I can manage it then. There are eight officers
here; surely there are some of the crew will join us! I’ll get all
the mutineers, if you’ll name them, out on the ice on some pretext. I
don’t care if they do go armed. Then we’ll haul in the gangway and from
behind the bulwarks we can hold the ship! A couple of nights freezing
on that ice will bring them round, all right! They’ll come cringing
back, hands in the air, begging to be taken aboard. Out with it now!
Who’s the leader?”

Iversen, more nervous than ever, shuffled to the door, opened it a
crack to assure himself no one was eavesdropping outside, then faced
us, and tremblingly blurted out,

“Sharvell!”

An amazing change came over the captain. He dropped into a chair,
roared with laughter.

“Sharvell? That’s rich! That lad? He’s not even a man yet! Nobody’d
follow him in a mutiny any more than a child! Hah, hah!” But abruptly
he stopped laughing, for Iversen was now weeping hysterically, tears
running down his coal-stained cheeks. Soberly De Long looked at him,
then took me by the sleeve, pulled me aside a little, and whispered,

“I guess the mutiny on the _Jeannette’s_ over, chief. I thought there
was somebody crazy in it, and now I know who. Send for the doctor,
quick! I’ll stay here with Iversen.” He started to light his pipe
again.

“I’ve already got the steward out looking for him, captain,” I replied.
“Ambler ought to be here any minute. And I guess you’re dead right,
brother! Poor Iversen!”

It was so. Immediately Surgeon Ambler came aboard, we turned the
weeping coalheaver over to him. An hour later, when, after a careful
examination, Iversen under Cole’s surveillance had been led forward, he
confirmed our fears. Iversen, if not already insane, was trembling on
the border of it. Only observation over several days could prove which.
De Long, much relieved at first by freedom from dread of any mutiny,
was nevertheless badly enough depressed by the doctor’s report.

“First a blinded officer,” he muttered, “now a crazy seaman! What’ll
this ice do to us next?”




CHAPTER XXII


June 21st came, the longest day in the year. Further south, to ordinary
people, that meant more daylight; to us, with daylight twenty-four
hours every day, it meant only that the sun stood on the Tropic of
Cancer, having reached his most northerly declination. Ruefully we
considered that. The sun was as far north as possible, as high in our
heavens as he would ever get, though even so, at noon he stood not so
high, only about 40° above the horizon. We would never receive his
rays any more direct; instead, from now on they would become even more
slanting, and less hot as he went south. And we were still held in
the ice. Our case for release began to look less hopeful, and we went
around that day with cheerless faces. Long afterward, picked out of the
Siberian snows, I salvaged the captain’s journal and looking through it
was particularly impressed by what he put down for June 21, 1880. So
aptly did he express the situation and our feelings of desolation that
day, that I repeat it here.

  “June 21st, 1880. Monday.

 “Discouraging, very. And yet my motto is ‘Hope on, hope ever.’ A
 very good one it is when one’s surroundings are more natural than
 ours; but situated as we are it is better in the abstract than in
 realization. There can be no greater wear and tear on a man’s mind
 and patience than this life in the pack. The absolute monotony; the
 unchanging round of hours; the awakening to the same things and the
 same conditions that one saw just before losing one’s self in sleep;
 the same faces; the same dogs; the same ice; the same conviction that
 tomorrow will be exactly the same as today, if not more disagreeable;
 the absolute impotence to do anything, to go anywhere, or to change
 one’s situation an iota; the realization that food is being consumed
 and fuel burned with no valuable result, beyond sustaining life; the
 knowledge that nothing has been accomplished thus far to save this
 expedition from being denominated an utter failure; all these things
 crowd in with irresistible force on my reasoning power each night as I
 sit down to reflect on the events of the day, and but for some still
 small voice within me that tells me this can hardly be the ending of
 all my labor and zeal, I should be tempted to despair.

 “All our books are read, our stories related; our games of chess,
 cards, and checkers long since discontinued. When we assemble in the
 morning at breakfast, we make daily a fresh start. Any dreams, amusing
 or peculiar, are related and laughed over. Theories as to whether we
 shall eventually drift northeast or northwest are brought forward and
 discussed. Seals’ livers as a change of diet are pronounced a success.
 The temperature of the morning watch is inquired into, the direction
 and velocity of the wind, and if it is snowing (as it generally is)
 we call it a ‘fine summer day.’ After breakfast, we smoke. Chipp
 gets a sounding and announces a drift east-southeast or southeast,
 as the case may be. We growl thereat. Dunbar and Alexey go off for
 seals with as many dogs as do not run away from them _en route_. The
 doctor examines Danenhower and Iversen, his two chronic patients.
 Melville draws a little for this journal, sings a little, and stirs
 everybody up to a realization that it is daytime. Danenhower (from his
 stateroom) talks incessantly—on any and all subjects, with or without
 an audience. The doctor moralizes between observations; I smoke; Mr.
 Newcomb makes his preparations for dredging specimens; Mr. Collins has
 not appeared, his usual hour being 12:30 in the afternoon. Meanwhile
 the men have been set at work; a sled and dogs are dispatched for the
 day’s snow for washing purposes. The day’s rations are served out
 to the cook, and then we commence to drift out on the ice to dig
 ditches, to look at the dogs, calculate the waste in the ice since
 yesterday, and the probable amount by tomorrow. The dredge is lowered
 and hauled. I get the sun at meridian, and we go to dinner. After
 dinner, more smoke, more drawing, more singing, more talk, more ditch
 and canal-making, more hunting, more dog inspection, and some attempts
 at napping until four p.m., when we are all around for anything that
 may turn up. At 5:30 time and azimuth sight, post position in cabin,
 make chart, go to supper at six, and discuss our drift, and then
 smoke, talk and general kill-time occupations till ten p.m., when the
 day is ended. The noise subsides; those who can, go to bed; I write
 the log and my journal, make the observations for meteorology till
 midnight. Mr. Collins succeeds me four hours, Chipp him four hours,
 the doctor next four hours, Mr. Collins next six hours, I next two
 hours, Melville next two hours, and I end the day again, and so it
 goes.

 “Our meals necessarily have a sameness. Canned meat, salt beef, salt
 pork, and bear meat have the same taste at one time as another. Each
 day has its bill of fare, but after varying it for a week we have, of
 course, to commence over again. Consequently we have it by heart, and
 know what we are going to get before we sit down at table. Sometimes
 the steward startles us with a potato salad (potatoes now rotting too
 fast for our consumption), or a seal’s liver, or a bear’s tongue;
 but we generally are not disturbed in that way. Our bill of fare is
 ample and good, our water is absolutely pure, and our fresh bread is
 something marvelous. Though disappointed day after day we are cheerful
 and healthy, and—here we are.”

And to all that I can fervently say “Amen!”

June on the whole was chilly and disagreeable. The temperature rarely
got above 32° F., and yet in spite of that the ice did keep on wasting,
from direct absorption of sunlight, of course. The ship came up
somewhat through the softening ice to a lighter draft, owing to our
considerable consumption of coal and stores since late November when we
were frozen in after our transit of the ice-canal. But as an offset to
this cheering rise, she heeled gradually more to starboard, adding to
our discomfort.

Meanwhile, De Long kept Dunbar, who naturally was a good walker,
scouting far and wide over the pack looking for open leads, which
might promise a break-up of the pack and a chance of escape through
one of them. June 28th, Dunbar, duck-hunting in the dinghy in a little
lead about a mile from the ship, came back in the late afternoon with
thirteen ducks, but with what was far more exciting, the news that the
lead had suddenly opened up, that he had followed it (open here and
there to a width of half a mile) at least fifteen miles before turning
round. And from there it still stretched northward as far as he could
see!

De Long was immediately all excitement. If only we could get the
_Jeannette_ across that single mile of solid ice between, there was no
telling how far north we might go along that lead! He dragged Chipp
into his cabin and went over with him the possibilities of blasting out
the intermediate ice. While Chipp was calculating how far our supply of
gunpowder would take us, De Long, eager to size up the situation on the
spot, hastily departed to examine the lead for himself.

About midnight, he came back into the cabin, tossed his parka onto the
table. Chipp, surrounded by a sea of papers containing his computations
on the explosive powers of gunpowder, handed the captain a sheet
containing his conclusions. De Long pushed it aside without even a
glance.

“Never mind, Chipp, we won’t need it. I got there just in time to watch
that lead close up so tight you can’t get a toothpick into it now!
At least I had the melancholy satisfaction of realizing that if the
_Jeannette_ had been there, she would in all probability have been in
for a very fine squeezing!”

And so June ended. We were still in the ice. Danenhower, thin and
bleached, was worse. Iversen seemed to be improved; while still
occasionally hysterical, his delusions of mutiny were no longer obvious.

July came and went. We dressed ship on July 4 in a thick fog and a
chilling mist. The flags came down at midnight (there was no sunset)
all covered with frost. Rain, mist, and fog were general. Our hopes for
what the summer sun would do for us began to fade. And even the few
glimpses we got of the sun, instead of cheering the captain up, further
irritated him. For De Long being now navigator and having finally after
days of delay got a shot at the sun on meridian for latitude, hopeful
that the drift had carried us north, glanced at his sextant only to
exclaim in anguish,

“Look at that altitude! All the sun shows me is how much closer I’m
getting to the South instead of to the North Pole! If ever a man had
justification for profanity, this southerly drift is it! The Bible says
that Job had many trials and tribulations which he bore with wonderful
patience, but I’ll bet he was never caught in pack ice! Nor drifted
south when the wind was blowing north! But then Job’s may have been an
ante-glacial period!” De Long picked up his pipe and nearly bit the
stem in half. But a puff or two of tobacco partly, at least, restored
his equanimity. Putting his sextant back in its case, he remarked to
Chipp, also engaged in shooting the sun,

“I suppose we might as well look at it philosophically. As Jack says,
‘It’s all in a cruise, boys; the more days, the more dollars!’”

July ended, and we were still in the ice. Such a miserable month we
were glad to be rid of.

August opened. Looking back over two thirds of the spent summer, with
the highest temperature only 38° F. on the hottest day, all hands began
to despair. So also, I think, did the captain, for he changed the
schedule for taking meteorological observations, requiring them only
once every three hours instead of hourly.

We came to the middle of the month, with the only change in our
condition an increase in our heel to 7-1/2°, a change indeed in
something, but not an improvement. We began to get morose—summer was
fast fading, we were not released, and our hopes of doing anything
in 1880 or in any succeeding year were vanishing into space. I tried
to cheer the mess up by singing (if I say it myself, for an engineer
I have a very good voice), Irish songs and ditties having been my
specialty since early in my Civil War days on blockade. Whether I
cheered up anyone except myself with the sound of my voice, I do not
know, but I did get some sullen looks for my efforts from Collins, who
being Irish himself may have thought I failed to do justice to the
songs of his native land. Collins (who also imagined _he_ could sing)
reciprocated by regaling us with melodies from _Pinafore_, then only
two years old, but I thought he did the English far more violence than
I did the Irish. In this conclusion, I have as independent evidence
the reactions of Newcomb, who, whenever I sang in the cabin, continued
reading wholly oblivious of me, but whenever Collins opened up on
_Pinafore_, immediately closed his book and remembered that he had a
gull or a seal that required stuffing.

As August dragged along, the little pools of water covering the floes
round about the ship now began to give us real cause for depression by
freezing over at night with a skin of ice which failed to melt until
the next noon. When that commenced, what chance was left for the sun to
have any effect on floes still thirty and more feet in thickness?

And to add to our woes, we found that as a result of our southerly and
easterly drifting, we had been steadily going backward. We were much
closer to our starting point, Herald Island, in late August than we had
been in early May. A whole summer’s drifting in the pack, and for a
Polar Expedition, we had got worse than nowhere!

Meanwhile, the wearing days crawled by and we chafed at our
impotence—well, well-equipped and eager to do something, we lay idle.
I could have chewed nails for a change; our captain was even more
ambitious—entering his cabin one evening with a sketch for his journal,
he looked at me and asked abruptly,

“Know Hamlet, chief? No? Well, for something to do, like Hamlet I can
say,

“‘Wouldst drink up eisel? Eat a crocodile? I’ll do it!’

“And so I would, chief, if there were any eisel and a few crocodiles
in our stores, and by so doing I could change our position to one of
usefulness. Well, what have you got there for my journal? Another
sketch of this eternal ice?”

August 31st, the last day of summer, came and went. We were still fast
in the pack. As a confirmation that summer was gone, we saw again that
evening for the first time in months a faint aurora in the sky. De
Long climbed to the crow’s-nest with a telescope, took a look around.
A desert of ice in all directions, nothing but ice, ice, ice! He came
down from aloft, all hope of release gone. Calling the carpenter,
he ordered him to commence preparing our portable deckhouse for
re-erection. Sending for me, he asked me to accompany him on a tour
of the bunkers, to reassure himself, no doubt, on the coal question.
Together, lighting our way with oil torches, we clambered through
the dusty bunkers, the captain checking by eye my statements of the
quantity in each one. Coming out, De Long musing over the figures,
declared feelingly,

“God forbid anything happens to make us go back to steam pumping. Only
fifty-three tons of coal—an equal weight in diamonds would not tempt me
to exchange! For that coal, chief, has got to last us through another
winter in the pack!”

Only _another_ winter? What reason, I wondered, had he for supposing
the end of a second winter would find us any closer to release? But the
pack had far from exhausted its versatility, as I soon enough found
out.




CHAPTER XXIII


September 1st came, and winter fell on us like a blanket. Snow, low
temperatures, and the prompt freezing over of all stray pools with a
coat of ice that failed to melt again gave the pack an immediate wintry
appearance that only deepened as the month drew on. September 6th, the
anniversary of our being first frozen in, opened our second year in
the pack, with the only change noticeable the fact that winter had set
in earlier and harder. But of course our present position, a hundred
and fifty miles north of that of the year before, might easily have
accounted for that.

September drifted by. October came. The temperatures dropped into
the sub-zero twenties. We noted only that we were less sensitive to
cold than the year before—luckily for us, for apparently we were in
for a worse freezing. All hands, officers and men, became more moody,
less talkative. By now it was evident to even the dullest-witted that
we might go on thus forever in the ice pack; that is, at least till
death in one form or another—by starvation, when our food gave out; by
freezing, when we exhausted our coal; or by the ice crushing our weak
bodies at any time—put a period to our tale. To talk further about what
the expedition would do when the ice released us seemed just a waste of
breath. The ice was not going to release us.

Meanwhile, in spite of our dreary outlook, we had to stick to the ship,
for what else could we do? But would the ship stick to us? What would
the ice do to the _Jeannette_ during this winter? Our memories of the
horrors of the winter past were not reassuring.

The month drew along. We ate our tasteless food, we drank our
distilled water, we kept ourselves alive. Two things only broke up
our unvarying daily routine—Divine Service on Sunday, and the weekly
issue (begun now for the first time on the cruise) on Wednesday of
two ounces of rum per man. Jack Cole did not have to pipe long of
a Wednesday afternoon to get the complete roster round the whiskey
barrel. But his long piping of a Sunday morning drew no such crowds. To
Divine Service, conducted weekly in the cabin by the captain, came not
a single seaman, and of the officers, just Chipp, Ambler, Dunbar and
myself—a congregation of four only to hear George Washington De Long,
acting chaplain, feelingly invoke the blessing of the Almighty upon our
enterprise and ask His mercy upon us—distressed, worn mortals trapped
in the Arctic wastes.

As October drew toward its close, distant rumblings in the pack,
cracks in the floes roundabout caused by contracting ice, ridges of
broken floe thrown up hither and yon, and the pistol-like snappings of
shrinking bolts in our timbers, warned us of trouble. November came;
we viewed its advent with trepidation, for the previous November had
inaugurated our reign of terror. On November 6th, the sun departed from
us and the long Arctic night commenced, our second. It would be longer
this time till the sun reappeared, ninety days or more instead of
seventy-one, for we were further north.

True to form, the thundering of the ice and the grinding of the pack
recommenced as per schedule in November and the tremors coming through
the thick floes shook the _Jeannette_ as in a storm. But we were
more calloused. Let the pack screech and roar! So long as nothing
was happening close aboard we merely listened. Newcomb and Collins,
however, who were more nervous than the rest, were forever running
up on deck at these shocks. They came back even more disturbed when
they could see nothing than when moving ice within eyesight gave the
explanation.

November drew along without visible disaster, but the dread and
anticipation of terrors yet to come caused trouble in other ways.
Newcomb, childish always, became mum as a clam at meals, and at other
times talked to no one, except perhaps to Collins. Whatever De Long
thought of this, he said nothing till one day passing through the
taxidermy room while Newcomb was mounting a crab, the latter stopped
him, queried,

“Captain, will you ask Mr. Dunbar whether he saw that _Uria Grylle_ he
shot with his rifle yesterday, in flight?”

De Long, a little piqued perhaps at being thus asked by a very junior
officer to serve as a messenger boy, said,

“Why don’t you ask him yourself, Mr. Newcomb?”

“Because,” replied our naturalist, “he has declined any relations with
me.”

De Long looked at him puzzled.

“Declined? On a matter of duty? That seems queer. I’ll have to look
into this.” Poking his head into the cabin outside, he called the
veteran Dunbar into the workroom, then closed the door.

“What’s this, Dunbar, about your refusing to speak to Mr. Newcomb? He’s
just asked me to ask you a question about a bird you shot, because he
says you won’t speak to him.”

“Let him ask,” replied the ice-pilot. “I’ll speak to him any time about
anything in the line of duty. But not on other things; I despise that
little Yankee pedlar and he knows it!”

“Come now, Mr. Dunbar,” broke in the captain, “that’s no way to talk
about a shipmate. Don’t lay too much stress on that little trading
episode of Newcomb’s with those Indians at St. Michael’s; Mr. Newcomb
did it only as a joke.”

“A joke, eh?” burst out the angered whaler. “And I suppose it’s a joke
too, when he tries to write a letter home from Siberia, criticizing his
superiors, saying that you, the captain, are a profane Catholic and
Melville’s an atheist! A fine shipmate he is!”

De Long, at this unexpected personal turn, reddened, grew suddenly
stern, gazed intently at Newcomb.

“What’s that, Mr. Newcomb? I’m a Catholic, right enough, but I think no
man can truly say I’m a profane one. Did you write such a letter, sir?”

“I did not!” said Newcomb promptly.

“I didn’t say he _wrote_ one,” countered Dunbar. “I merely said he
_tried_ to. There wasn’t any mail going, so I guess he didn’t. But
the little fool’s too chummy with the men; it got out around the crew
somehow that he was going to. That’s where I heard it.”

“Well, never mind about any scuttle butt rumors, Mr. Dunbar. Mr.
Newcomb says he didn’t write such a letter, and that settles it. Now,
Mr. Newcomb, I’ve noticed before your not talking to your fellow
officers. Forget any such child’s play, and you’ll get along better.”

“Don’t I do my duty, sir?” asked Newcomb with apparent innocence.

“Yes, and I’ll take good care that you continue to,” responded the
captain.

“Very well, sir,” said Newcomb pertly. “If I do my duty, I must
respectfully continue the privilege of maintaining this silence.”

Nonplussed at this attitude, De Long looked at the infantile naturalist
a moment, then gave up, turned on his heel and left. Needless to
say, the ice-pilot promptly did likewise, leaving Newcomb in proud
possession of his privilege of silence.

But this was only a beginning of increased ill-will in the mess,
owing probably to the general state of ragged nerves. The very next
morning, Dr. Ambler and Collins had a fierce set-to about the slamming
of a door. It so happened that I was sitting in the wardroom, calmly
reading a book, when along came Starr, the Jack-of-the-dust, to break
stores out of the afterhold. He opened the wardroom door and fastened
it back in order to roll a barrel through it, which he did. Just then
four bells struck, and it being Ambler’s turn to get the ten o’clock
observations, the doctor drew on his parka and went out the opened
door, followed soon by the huge Russian, who, sailor fashion, kicked
the door to as he passed. The door closed with a bang, startling
Collins, who as usual was asleep during the morning. Collins, grabbing
a few clothes, shot by me out of his room, mad as a hornet. He never
noticed Starr who was still busy rolling his barrel forward, but
spotting the doctor on his way up to the deck above, raced after him,
seized him by the arm, and belligerently demanded,

“What d’ye mean by slamming the door like that? You know well enough I
always sleep in the morning!”

Ambler looked at him in complete mystification.

“Why, what are you talking about, Mr. Collins? I haven’t closed any
doors, let alone slammed them.”

“What d’ye think woke me up then? I’m not crazy! I heard you do it,
and I’m damned sick of my being broken out of my sleep by you or by
anybody!”

A dangerous hardness came into Dr. Ambler’s usually soft Virginian
voice.

“I tell you I didn’t slam any door! Mr. Collins, do you mean to say to
me that I lie?”

What might have happened, I don’t know. I scrambled up the ladder,
thrust myself between the two. From the glint in Ambler’s eyes, it
looked to me like bloodshed next.

“Hold on, gentlemen! Please!” I begged. “I know all about this. The
Jack-of-the-dust slammed that door; Dr. Ambler didn’t even notice it.
Now look here, Collins! If you’d been faster on your feet, you’d have
seen who did it yourself; and if you weren’t so damned fast at taking
offense at every little thing, you’d have rolled over and gone to sleep
again without bothering about a little noise. Now apologize to the
doctor and turn in again till you’ve slept off that grouch!”

Collins, very red in the face at having made a fool of himself, mumbled
out some lame apology, which Ambler accepted without comment and
departed to take the morning observations. I went below to continue my
interrupted reading, but Collins, instead of turning in, moped about
all day, no doubt trying to justify to himself his ridiculous conduct;
very possibly wondering also whether I had not fabricated from the
whole cloth that yarn about the Jack-of-the-dust to put him in a hole
and figuring how he might reciprocate.

At any rate, at dinner that evening, he startled me by breaking his
usual mealtime reticence and remarking as I was hacking away at the
salt beef,

“There’s old Melville, getting gray and bald over his confinement in
the ice.”

“No, Collins,” I shot back, “my hair’s no grayer than yours. And as for
my baldness, I’ve suffered neither heat nor cold from it since I’ve
been in the Arctic, but I will admit that if instead of being marooned
here, we were off Saint Patrick’s Land where we could all be hunting
now, probably I’d have a better time.”

“So?” said Collins, instantly offended. “That settles it! When a man
starts to get personal in his remarks, I don’t have anything more to
say.”

“Personal? Who’s getting personal?” I asked, perplexed, for if Collins’
commenting on my baldness was not personal, what was? Then recalling
my statement, I blushed myself, for in my haste in getting in my
repartee I realized suddenly that my tongue had slipped. “Did I say
_Saint_ Patrick’s Land, Collins? I’m sorry; I didn’t mean to hurt your
feelings. I meant _Prince_ Patrick’s Land, off to the northeast of
here.”

“Oh, no, Melville; I’m not a fool!” Collins blazed out, obviously
certain now that I was altogether too facile in explaining away
embarrassing situations. “When you said Saint Patrick’s Land, you meant
Saint Patrick’s Land! And as for my gray hairs, I got them in honorable
service you’re completely ignorant of!”

Well, I thought to myself, where does he think I got mine? Surely the
Civil War, which started me off on both my grayness and my baldness,
was honorable service! But very prudently, I kept my thoughts to myself
and my mouth shut. What was the use of further inflaming him? Quietly
I bent my beard over my plate and resumed operations on my salt beef,
while the rest of the mess, content to let the matter drop, wisely
did the same and the meal closed in a tenser silence even than it had
opened.

It began to seem now as if every little thing caused trouble. That
night I had a remarkable dream, and there being so little to talk about
that all hands had not heard discussed a hundred times over, I sprang
it on the mess after breakfast, expecting to get a good laugh out of
them.

“Say, mates,” I began, “speaking of all the instruments we have to read
on our meteorological observations, I had a grand dream about ’em last
night. Want to hear it?”

“Guaranteed a brand-new dream, chief?” demanded Chipp. “If not, belay
the story, for I dream about instruments every night now myself.”

“Don’t mind Chipp, chief. Shoot it!” encouraged the blindfolded
Danenhower from the foot of the table. “I can stand it, anyway; I don’t
have to read those instruments any more.”

“Oh, it’s new all right,” I assured Chipp. “Stand by then. I dreamed
last night I was old Professor Louis Agassiz himself, king of the
scientific world, and without a stitch of clothes on, I was going
down the middle of Pennsylvania Avenue on my way to the Smithsonian
Institution, decked out with necklaces of hygrometers, bracelets
made of thermometers, a belt like a South Sea hula-hula’s grass skirt
made up of mercurial barometers, and God knows what other instruments
dangling from my fingers and my toes. And there I was, dancing along
through the heart of Washington with all those instruments on me
clattering like castanets, offering to sell ’em to the crowd at only
two cents apiece, but nobody would buy!”

Amid a gale of laughter from my messmates, I danced around my chair
snapping my fingers, illustrating, then asked,

“Now, how’s that for a dream, boys?”

“I think it’s damned insulting to me and my profession, if you want my
opinion!” broke in an unexpected voice.

Taken completely aback, I stopped dead in my dance and whirled about.
There standing in his stateroom door, watching me, was Collins, who,
never on hand for breakfast, was at that time normally sound asleep. A
dead silence fell on the laughing mess.

“And if you’ve got to try to make me look like a damned fool, Melville,
with your jokes about nakedness and that my instruments are not worth
two cents, wait till I’m off the ship!”

Slam! went the door, closing off our meteorologist, whom I had never
even thought of in connection with my dream, from my sight. I sank back
into my chair with a deep sigh. I couldn’t even relate an innocent
dream without offending the touchy Collins.

However, that was not the end of it, though I had hoped it was. The day
itself wore along like all our other days, an utter blank, till about
ten p.m., when with all hands about ready to turn in, the captain in
his cabin sent for Collins, and as luck would have it, asked him, of
all things, to bring a thermometer!

Collins went to fetch the thermometer, some special one, and took
it into the cabin. There was some conversation about thermometers
which, the skipper’s door being open, was faintly audible to us in the
wardroom, but to which I paid little attention, till, the subject of
thermometers evidently being now a raw one with Collins, I heard him
say in a loud voice,

“Captain, I wish the officers would treat me with the same courtesy I
try to treat them.”

At that I pricked up my ears.

“What’s the matter with you?” demanded De Long quickly. “If you have
any particular charge to make against any officer, make it right now
and I’ll investigate it.”

That was the last I heard, for the captain immediately closed his door,
wanting privacy of course for such a discussion.

“Well, here’s where I have to explain even my dreams,” I thought to
myself as I rolled into my bunk. “What a life!” Still, I managed to
sleep that night with no more nightmares about thermometers to disturb
me, and I woke in the morning quite refreshed. Nothing happened during
breakfast either, and I was beginning to think that perhaps Collins was
more of a man after all than the night before I had given him credit
for being, when a little after eleven, while out on the ice for my
regulation exercise, De Long hailed me,

“Come here, Melville. I want to see you.”

I went over. It was forty below zero, and, I thought, a devil of a
temperature in which to get hauled up over thermometers.

“Last night, chief,” said the captain, starting mildly enough, “in a
conversation with Mr. Collins, he reported you to me for plaguing him.
I asked him what the trouble was, and he said that you were always
cracking jokes and singing Irish songs to make game of him.”

“What?” I mumbled half to myself, completely flabbergasted. “Songs, in
addition to thermometers?”

But the captain, oblivious of my interruption, finished decisively,

“Melville, you had better not sing any more.”

“Why, captain!” I said in astonishment. “I don’t think I should be
muzzled in this manner. There’s no reason why I shouldn’t sing a song
if I want to. It’s my only relaxation. My songs don’t disturb anybody.”

“Collins says your Irish songs disturb him. Sing something else,”
ordered the captain flatly.

“But, captain, I can’t. I don’t know any other songs.”

“Well, sing psalms then.”

“Psalms? Me?” I protested. “Never! I didn’t ship as a psalm singer!”

“Very well, chief; suit yourself,” said the skipper with a note of
finality in his voice. “It’s a little cold out here to discuss the
matter further. You had better stop singing altogether then,” and
leaving me badly upset at the idea of losing my one diversion, he
walked off in the snow, resuming his exercise.

Naturally enough, I looked around the frosty field of ice to starboard
of the _Jeannette_, which constituted our exercise grounds, for the
cause of that muzzle the captain so unceremoniously had just slapped
on me. A little way off was Collins, undoubtedly a witness to what had
gone on, and in view of the extraordinary way sounds carried across
the ice in that Arctic air, probably a willing enough auditor also. I
strode over to him.

“Good morning, Collins.”

“Good morning, Melville.”

I was too hot in one way and too cold in another for any preliminaries.
I jumped headfirst into my subject.

“The captain tells me you complained to him and claimed his protection
against my jokes and my singing Irish songs and making game of you.
Collins, that was neither upright nor manly!”

“Hold on!” said Collins. “I’ll explain that thing.”

“I don’t want any explanations! It’s plain enough what you’ve done. If
you’d come to me like any shipmate should, and told me that my jokes
and songs were disagreeable to you, I wouldn’t have sung another song
or cracked another joke. But your tale-bearing makes me sick! From now
on, we’re through! You keep to your side of the ship and I’ll keep to
mine! And don’t you forget it!”

And from that day forward, I never spoke again to Collins nor he to me,
except when I was told to carry him an order.

Our wardroom mess was now in a fine state for sociability. Danenhower,
blinded, behind the bulkhead of his stateroom talked almost incessantly
to relieve his monotony but nobody paid any attention to that as
conversation. Dunbar wouldn’t talk to Newcomb; Collins and I were
not on speaking terms; Newcomb would not talk to anybody; Collins
was nearly as bad, speaking pleasantly only to Danenhower; Chipp was
naturally reticent and had little to say ever; Dunbar, much aged by
illness, was taciturn as a result; the captain, weighted down by his
responsibilities, felt compelled to maintain an extreme official
reserve; and only Dr. Ambler and I were left ever to carry on a
conversation like ordinary human beings. The ice was working on us, all
right. A casual visitor, had one been able to poke his head through our
door on the _Jeannette_ at any meal, would have concluded that we were
about to attend the funeral of some dear friend, and in that he would
not have been far wrong; subconsciously we felt and acted as if we were
going to a funeral, only it was—ours!

Matters in one direction at least soon came to a head with a rush.
Collins, usually the last man out on the ice at eleven a.m. for
exercise and the first man aboard at one p.m., when it ended, now
began to comply with the exercise order even less cheerfully. As a
regular thing he was considerably late in leaving the ship, and what
was worse, he took an ungodly length of time, when he went aboard at
noon to record the results of his midday observations in the log, to
get back again on the ice with the rest of us. This quickly became
such a flagrant flouting of the exercise order that while no one said
anything about it, De Long could hardly overlook it and keep his
authority with the rest of us. December 2nd brought the end.

Collins, late on the ice that day as usual, went promptly aboard at
eight bells to log the readings. When he failed to reappear after about
three times the period required to note them down, De Long with an
irritated look on his face boarded the ship. He glanced through the
door, always open for ventilation purposes while the ship was cleared,
into the cabin. There with his parka off, smoking his pipe, was
Collins, leisurely writing in the logbook and carrying on an animated
conversation through the opened doors and hatches with Danenhower in
his stateroom on the deck below. De Long, further irritated at this
confirmation of his suspicions, said nothing and returned to the ice,
pacing nervously back and forth for another period long enough for
anyone again to have logged the readings thrice over, and still no
Collins! De Long reached the end of his patience. With determination in
his stride, up the gangway went the captain and into the cabin. What
happened afterwards, I got from Danenhower, who, an unwilling listener
(unless he plugged his ears), was forced to take it all in.

Collins, at the stove drawing on his gloves, was still talking with
Danenhower, when he looked up in surprise to find the skipper regarding
him fixedly. De Long opened the ball.

“Well, Mr. Collins, has it required all this time for you to record the
12 o’clock observations?”

Collins, a little nettled, replied,

“Well, sir, I hardly know the meaning of your question.”

At this naive disclaimer of comprehending simple English, De Long
proceeded to explain in words of one syllable,

“The meaning of my question, sir, is this: Is it necessary for you, in
order to record the 12 o’clock observations, to remove your coat, light
your pipe, engage in a conversation with Mr. Danenhower, and remain in
the cabin for twenty minutes when you should be exercising?”

“Well,” answered Collins curtly, “perhaps I might have done it quicker,
but I didn’t know my minutes were being counted for me.”

With difficulty swallowing the broad implication of spying contained in
Collins’ last words, the captain said evenly,

“I have seen fit to issue an order that everybody should go on the ice
from 11 to 1, and your coming in the cabin and remaining for twenty
minutes is a violation I will neither submit to nor permit you to
continue. I have noticed for several days that you were longer than
necessary in logging the noon observations, and today I satisfied
myself on the subject.”

“Oh, very well,” said Collins contemptuously, “if you are satisfied,
of course I have nothing more to say. But you are doing me a great
injustice!”

That was too much for De Long, who as captain prided himself on
even-handed justice for all hands. Whatever his ideas were before, he
now changed his mind.

“Mr. Collins, as I have recently shown you, a representation to me of
injustice has only to be made in proper language to secure you all the
justice you want. But I do not like your manner or bearing in talking
with me. You seem to assume that you are to receive no correction,
direction, or dictation from me; that your view of an occurrence is
always to be taken; and that if I differ from you, it is my misfortune,
but of no importance to the result!”

At this Collins blazed up.

“Well, I don’t like the manner you speak to me either, nor the way in
which I am taken to task!”

De Long looked calmly at him.

“I am your commanding officer, Mr. Collins. I have a perfect right to
say what I say to you.”

But this Collins would evidently not admit. In a fiery tone, he shot
back,

“I acknowledge only the rights given you by Naval Regulations!”

That shot rocked De Long and he promptly flared up.

“Do you mean to imply that I am going contrary to Naval Regulations?”
he asked, outraged.

“I mean to say,” said Collins flatly, “that you have no right to talk
to me as you do!”

De Long considered that carefully before speaking, then in as official
a voice as he could still muster he stated,

“I consider that by coming into the cabin as you did today, removing
your coat, lighting your pipe, and carrying on a conversation with
Mr. Danenhower, you took advantage of the 12 o’clock observation to
disregard my order in relation to the exercise.”

“And when you say that,” roared Collins, “I say it is _not_ so!”

Amazed now by this open insubordination, De Long paused and regarded
the belligerent Collins with perplexity, puzzled by a situation so
complicated that the like of it no commanding officer in naval history
had ever had to deal with. The captain finally decided to try to calm
Collins down, educating him a bit in naval manners, before finally
admonishing him.

“Mr. Collins, great allowance has been made for your ignorance of Naval
Regulations, your position in this ship, and your being so situated the
first time. But you must remember that the commanding officer is to be
spoken to in a respectful manner and with respectful language, and you
do not seem to attend to either particular.”

Collins rudely tossed this olive branch into the scuppers, so to speak,
by retorting truculently,

“I treat the commanding officer of this ship with all the respect due
him as head of the expedition, but when he charges me with violating an
order, I say, I HAVE NOT!”

De Long accepted the challenge.

“Do you suppose you will be permitted to contradict me flatly in that
way, sir? Have you lost your senses?”

“No!” exclaimed Collins. “_I_ haven’t lost my senses. I know what I
say. And when you say I’ve violated an order, I say I have _not_!”

For the long-suffering De Long, that settled it. He rose, a dangerous
coldness in his voice.

“Enough, Mr. Collins! You can’t be properly dealt with in this ice.
When we get back to the United States, I’ll have you courtmartialed!
Meanwhile, turn in all your instruments, and perform no further duty on
this ship. You’re under arrest!”




CHAPTER XXIV


December was notable mainly for continued low temperatures, down around
-50° F. We thankfully saw it slip away with nothing to remember it by
save a minstrel show given by the crew to mark our second Christmas Eve
in the ice. That this show was in any way memorable was mainly owing
to my coalheaver, comical little Sharvell, who rigged himself out as
an attractive English miss in a sailor-made calico dress, a blond wig
(originally the fibers of a manila hawser), white stockings, and low
shoes. He provided so fair and alluring an imitation of something no
sailor on the _Jeannette_ had for a year and a half been within hail
of, that the show was immediately a howling success, hardly needing the
double ration of rum served out beforehand to make the audience not too
critical of the performance.

Of Christmas Day itself, the less said the better. Our mince pies were
made of pemmican this time, the canned mince meat having been all used
up our first year’s holiday. In spite of the brandy flavoring, there
was probably not one of us who was not wondering with gloomy foreboding
as he bit into his pemmican pie what, if anything, that crafty
Chinaman, Ah Sam, would have left to substitute for the mince meat for
our third Christmas in the pack.

And soon another New Year’s Eve, with more minstrels; a little
more rum; a fine speech to the crew by the captain ending with the
cheerily-expressed hope that before another New Year’s Eve, we would
all be back in our homes, saying to our friends with pardonable pride,

“I, too, was a member of the _Jeannette_ Expedition.”

The only trouble with the speech was that no one, including the
captain himself, in his heart really believed it. Then came midnight,
with eight bells for the old year, eight bells more for the new
one; and we soberly faced the year 1881. 1879 and 1880 had been
heartbreakers for us. What had 1881 in store for the _Jeannette_, there
in the Arctic?

To start with, it had January gales, bitter cold, and the usual
thunderous uproar of the pack in motion, but fortunately never close
enough to endanger us. And wonder of wonders, the discovery that
the gales were mostly easterly, so that both by observation and by
drift lead, we found that at last we were going (when we went at
all) steadily in one direction, northwest, and no longer endlessly
zigzagging to and fro like a _Flying Dutchman_ to the northward of
Wrangel Land. And to lend a little further zest to this pleasing state
of affairs, the month of January closed with the ship in latitude 74°
41′ N., longitude 173° 10′ E., a little farther west and three miles
farther north than any of our previous peregrinations with the pack had
ever got us. We began to take notice. Perhaps we were at last “going
somewhere,” although since the pack was moving with us, our scenery was
changing not the slightest.

February arrived, and with it on February 5 came the SUN—a glorious
sight to us after ninety-one long days of night! And never was he
hailed by sun worshipers in ancient Persian temples with such sincere
joy and enthusiasm as by the sadly bleached and frozen array of
careworn, fur-clad seamen on the _Jeannette_. We streamed out on the
ice with the temperature at 40° below zero to bask in the light, real
daylight! of part of the sun’s disk peeping over the horizon at us at
noon. We thanked God for the sun’s return, bringing to us once more the
light to shine on our ship, still pumping away at our leak but no more
damaged than when he left us in early November.

The rest of February and all of March went by with no signs of letup
in our winter cold. A few more gales, seemingly worse than ever, buried
the ship in fine snow, leaving only the three masts sticking up out of
the white wastes to mark our position, but the winds continued easterly
and we continued our northwest drift with our soundings steadily
increasing also. Were we at last getting off the Siberian continental
shelf into the deeper water of the open Arctic Sea? We hoped so, for
deeper water meant greater opportunity for the ocean to break up the
pack.

We drifted across the 75th parallel of latitude, for us a red letter
event. 75° North! It sounded much better. While not to be compared with
the 83° North already attained along the Greenland coasts by other
explorers, still it looked promising, and what a change from forever
shuttling back and forth between parallels 72° and 74° for twenty weary
months!

In other ways, matters in March were worse. Several times, from the
screeching of the pack, the cracking of the ice, and the severe
shocks to the ship, we feared we were in for a repetition of some of
our hair-raising experiences of the first winter, but each time the
tumbling floes failed to come near us, and we thankfully heard the
distant roarings subside. On top of that, the doctor, who all through
the year had hopefully lanced and probed the abscess in Danenhower’s
left eye, found himself searching his soul as to whether he should
undertake a major operation, but finally in view of all conditions,
concluded he dared not. Dan, wan and emaciated from his long
confinement, could at least see with one eye, his right, and that eye
while weak from sympathetic suffering with its mate, seemed now in less
danger of becoming permanently affected. As a result, Dan with his left
eye blindfolded and his right heavily shielded by a colored lens, was
occasionally allowed to walk over the ship, and even, when the weather
was unusually favorable, permitted to grope his way round the ice
alongside.

Aside from these matters, March brought us two other unusual episodes
to break the monotony of our lives. The first was a bear, a she-bear
as it turned out and recently a mother, which facts may have explained
matters, for this bear, cornered by the dogs on top of a hummock near
the ship, put up such a tremendous fight as we never saw before. The
top of that hummock was a mass of flying fur and snarling dogs, the
heavens resounding with howls, screeches, and roars, dogs leaping in to
attack only to be sent sailing right and left on their backs. Bear and
dogs were out for a finish fight—savage teeth and lunging claws made
a shambles of the ice on that hummock—how it might have ended was a
question, for finally Nindemann, coming up, settled the battle with his
rifle.

For us she turned out to be a very expensive bear; when we took stock
of casualties, we found one dog, Plug Ugly, dead; another, Prince,
ripped open from back to shoulder; three more, Wolf, Tom, and Bingo,
with gashed sides and stomachs; while Snoozer (the captain’s favorite)
had his mouth considerably lengthened as by a razor, and Smike was
badly chewed in two places, not to mention half a dozen other dogs
licking minor injuries. Dr. Ambler put in a busy day with thread and
needle sewing up the wounded. When it was all over, we had a badly
battered pack of dogs who were quite agreeable to crawling quietly off
into the snow, by unanimous consent suspending all hostilities among
themselves.

The other deviation from monotony was the sudden interest taken by
our two Chinamen, Tong Sing and Ah Sam, in flying kites. The steady
and continuous east winds no doubt brought to mind their opportunity,
and soon Chinese kites in all shapes, fashions, and colors—birds,
flies, and dragons—were fluttering in the breeze as tranquilly as if
they were on the green banks of the Yang-Tse-Kiang, instead of in the
Arctic ice at 40° below. The antics of our cook and steward with their
playthings kept the crew, lining the _Jeannette’s_ rail watching them,
in an uproar. But so seriously did Sing and Sam take their pastime that
when imperative routine sent them back to cabin and galley, instead of
winding in their lines, they would tie their kite-strings to whatever
was handiest on the lee side, the shrouds, the davits, or the belaying
pins, till they could emerge again and cast loose; and the captain
believed that had it been necessary, they would cheerfully have torn up
their shirts for kite-tails!

April 1 came, bringing with it by the calendar our spring and summer
routine, but no particular break in the weather, which on April 16 was
still -26° F., much worse than comparable temperatures of the year
before; for us, certainly not a hopeful sign.

We soon had another bit of excitement; a few days later for a while
we feared that we had lost our entire commissary department. Both Ah
Sam and Tong Sing, armed with rifles, in the early afternoon went off
hunting on the pack. When by seven at night they had not returned, we
became not only hungry but alarmed, and sent out a searching party. At
nine o’clock, they met the steward, Charley Tong Sing, coming in alone,
to tell a very involved story. A few miles from the ship, as he related
it, he and the cook had picked up a bear track and with visions of more
fresh bear to work on for dinner, they started eagerly in pursuit,
after some miles coming in sight of the bear, which to their joy they
found was being worried along by two of our best dogs, Wolf and Prince.

The dogs seeing reenforcements at last coming up in the form of our two
Chinamen, and all hunters looking alike to them, promptly brought the
bear to a stand by heading him off and snapping at his nose.

Running forward to get in a shot, Charley unfortunately slipped
amongst some broken ice, and a piece of it fell on his back, holding
him down, or he positively asserted, he would have killed the bear.
Thus _hors de combat_, he lay while the dogs, no doubt thoroughly
disgusted at such inexpert support, let the bear get underway again. By
the time Ah Sam had managed to pry the ice off Charley and release him,
neither bear nor dogs was in sight.

It being now at least six o’clock, both cook and steward came suddenly
to the realization that aboard ship, chow was way past due and held a
council of war, the upshot of which was that the cook as senior officer
present, ordered the steward to return to both cook and serve dinner
while he, the cook, kept on to bag the bear. So there, safely back, was
Charley Tong Sing, but where was our cook and where were our two best
dogs?

De Long, having finally digested (instead of his dinner) this story in
excited pidgin English of ice, bears, dogs, and Chinamen, looked at his
executive officer in dismay. It was now dark, with considerable wind
and drifting snow.

“Shall I send the searching party out again, sir?” asked Chipp.

“What the use?” queried the harassed skipper. “A bear chased by dogs
chased by a cook is too pressed for time to steer a proper compass
course, so where should we look?”

We waited and worried till midnight, when that fear at least was
allayed as Ah Sam, thoroughly exhausted, came stumbling up the gangway,
and a more completely demoralized Chinaman you could never find. De
Long personally made him drink half a tumblerful of whiskey to bring
him round, but he was completely incoherent and began to cry. When at
last he was calmed a little, he related how he had continued to chase
the bear, which the two dogs to give him a chance, by fierce attacks
managed occasionally to stop for a minute or two but never for long
enough for him to get within range. The dogs, Prince and Wolf, fighting
desperately this way as the bear retreated, were both bleeding. Ah
Sam says he followed the bear on a southerly course fifteen miles,
determined to get him if he had to chase him all the way to China.
Then by a particularly vicious onslaught, the dogs finally succeeded
in holding the bear till Ah Sam could run up close enough for a fine
shot. Raising his rifle, our cook took careful aim on the bear’s head,
and pressed the trigger, when horror of horrors, instead of hurting the
bear, the rifle exploded in his hands! His morale completely shattered,
poor Ah Sam sat down in the snow and wept, while the bear, still
accompanied by Wolf and Prince, amazed no doubt by such weird hunting,
but unwilling to give up, moved on over the pack and that was the last
he saw of any of them. Still weeping, Ah Sam picked up the remains of
his rifle and started home. How he ever found the ship again, he didn’t
know; it had taken him, walking continuously, until midnight. And
there, indicating it with a hysterical wave of his hand, as proof of
this wild story was the treacherous rifle!

We examined it curiously. Ah Sam had not exaggerated—the gun barrel
was torn to pieces; only a half length, cracked open, being left still
attached to the stock. But to anyone used to firearms, the answer was
simple. Ah Sam, in his long chase, must have let the muzzle slip into
a snowdrift; the snow freezing solidly in the bore, had plugged it
off, with the natural result that when he fired, there being no proper
release for the exploding powder, it had promptly blown off the muzzle.

Dr. Ambler examined Ah Sam carefully for wounds; it seemed a miracle
one of those flying rifle fragments had not cut his head off. But
physically he had escaped unscathed; his demoralization was wholly
mental, owing to the way, in his efforts to provide roast bear for
dinner, an unkind fate had treated him. Still weeping, poor Ah Sam was
led off to his bunk.




CHAPTER XXV


April drew toward its close, leaving us as a parting gift in latitude
76° 19′ N., longitude 164° 45′ E. Over 76° North, and with our drift
increasing in speed weekly! We were on our way now with a vengeance,
moving at last toward the Pole. A few more months like April, and we
might find ourselves by the middle of summer across the 83rd parallel,
to establish with the _Jeannette_ at the very least a new record for
Farthest North! The effect on George Washington De Long was magical—his
shoulders straightened up as if he had shed a heavy weight, his blue
eyes became positively cheery, new courage oozed from his every
gesture—after twenty weary months of discouragement and defeat, our
third year in the Arctic was going to redeem all and send us home
unashamed!

May came. The temperature rose only a little, reaching zero, but we
didn’t mind that much, for in a few days we were nearing the 77th
parallel. The captain’s cheerfulness began to communicate itself to
the crew and a livelier spirit became decidedly manifest in all hands,
with one exception, that is. Collins, of course, was the exception.
He, technically a prisoner awaiting courtmartial, moped worse than
ever; upset even more by the idea that now that he no longer had
any active part, the expedition might really accomplish something.
Physically Collins was not under restraint—no irons, no cell, not
even restriction to his own stateroom, let alone restriction to the
confines of the ship. The captain had no wish to risk Collins’ health
by even such confinement as Danenhower was involuntarily subjected to.
But relieved wholly of all duty and responsibility, Collins was in
effect merely a passenger; his former work was divided between the
captain, Ambler, Chipp and myself, throwing a heavier load on us, for
the meteorological observations were religiously kept up. Indeed, with
the ship at last rapidly changing position northward and westward,
they were now increased. Still a member of the cabin mess, Collins ate
with us, absolutely silent except for an ostentatiously polite “Good
morning, captain,” once a day, after which his fine oblivion respecting
the existence of the rest of us was an excellent wet blanket on
conviviality at meals.

But other things relieved the monotony of meals a bit. Ducks and
geese began to show up overhead, flying some west, some north, and
occasionally landing on the small pools near by, formed by the
continually changing cracks in the moving ice. Dunbar and Alexey
knocked down some with their shotguns. After our continuous diet of
salt beef and insipid canned meat, rest assured we bit into those
heaven-sent ducks avidly, though frequently sudden cries of pain as
some _gourmet’s_ teeth came down hard on pellets of lead, showed that
Ah Sam had been none too careful in extracting birdshot before serving.

The weather warmed up a bit. The sun, though never high in the heavens,
stayed above the horizon twenty-four hours a day, and even at midnight
we began to see him, paradoxically enough, looking at us from due
north, over the unknown Pole!

But as another paradox, now that winter was going and late spring and
continuous daylight were with us, the doctor for the first time on
our long cruise since the diarrhoea epidemic in 1879, began again to
have a string of patients. Chipp, Tong Sing, Newcomb, Alexey, Kuehne,
Nindemann, and unfortunately, himself—all complained of general
debility, cramps in varying degrees, and slight indications of palsy.
Chipp, Tong Sing, and Newcomb, in the order named, were worst.

What was the trouble? The doctor, himself a minor sufferer, was able
to work on his own symptoms as well as on those of the others in
diagnosis. Naturally, since we had just come through the winter, scurvy
was promptly suspected, but not a single evidence of the very obvious
manifestations of that disease could the doctor find in anyone. This
was some mental relief, for in the midst of all our other failures,
De Long, Ambler, and I had taken considerable pride in having with my
distilled water kept us free of that Arctic scourge and for a longer
period than ever before in history.

But if it wasn’t scurvy, what was it? Ambler racked his brains and his
medical books, going over all possible diseases that cold, exposure,
darkness, poor ventilation, depression, and our diet might have exposed
us to, but to no result. The symptoms were none too obvious; he could
lay his finger on nothing definite. Had we developed a new Arctic
disease from our unprecedented stay in the ice? The surgeon could
not say—only time would tell. Meanwhile, Chipp, the worst sufferer,
decidedly thin and weak, was first relieved of part of his duties and
then of all of them. The other victims were told to take things easier
till they had recuperated.

But as the days dragged along, they didn’t recuperate, they got worse.
The doctor put Chipp on the sicklist and ordered him to bed; the same
with Charley Tong Sing whose case became even more serious. Meanwhile
Ambler, suffering himself, was feverishly searching his _Materia
Medica_ for an antidote. But with no definite diagnosis of the disease
possible, his search was fruitless. Ambler was nearly distracted, for
no ailment arising from our manner of life fitted in with the vague
symptoms. And then a severe attack of colic in Newcomb gave him a clue.
He checked his medical books, checked the other patients, and with a
grave face went to the captain to inform him that, implausible as it
seemed, without question every man on the sicklist was suffering from
acute lead poisoning!

That made the mystery even deeper. If lead poisoning, where was the
lead coming from? Lead poisoning was normally a painter’s disease
and not for months had any man on the ship touched a paint pot or a
brush. What then was the source? As the most probable cause, I had
to direct suspicion at myself, for Bartlett, Lee, and I in making up
our distiller piping joints, had for tightness wiped them all with
red lead. Immediately, Surgeon Ambler who had daily for a year and a
half been testing the water for salt, tested it for lead. He found
some insignificant traces, but it seemed hard to believe such minute
quantities could cause us trouble. Still we had been imbibing that
water constantly and the cumulative effect might have done it. While
the problem of dismantling all the pipe joints and cleaning them of red
lead was being cogitated, the captain went one step further—he ordered
Ah Sam to discontinue for use in making tea and coffee, the pots which
had soldered joints, and to replace them with iron vessels.

And so, all full of this lugubrious discovery as to what had laid
up our shipmates, we met for dinner, a much reduced mess, with only
De Long, Dunbar, Danenhower, Collins and myself present. Ah Sam,
substituting for the deathly ill Tong Sing, served the meal—no bear,
no seal, no ducks this time—just salt beef and the ever present stewed
tomatoes, our principal vegetable antidote for scurvy, the supply of
which was holding out splendidly.

More quietly even than usual, dinner proceeded. I carved the salt beef,
Dunbar ladled out the tomatoes. Ah Sam padded around the cabin with the
dishes. Moodily we bent over our plates, and then an outburst, doubly
noticeable in that silence, brought us erect.

“Bah!” burst out the semi-blinded Danenhower, spitting out a mouthful
of food. “I don’t mind breaking my teeth on duck, but who, for God’s
sake, shot these tomatoes?”

“Shot the tomatoes, Dan? What do you mean?” asked the puzzled skipper.

“Just what I say,” mumbled Dan, trying more delicately with his napkin
now to rid his mouth of the remainder. “They’re full of birdshot!”

I walked over and examined the tomatoes spattered on the tablecloth
before Danenhower. Sure enough, there in the reddish mess were several
black pellets of solder, looking remarkably like birdshot! A light
dawned on me.

“Ah Sam!” I ordered, “bring me right away, half a dozen unopened cans
of tomatoes and a can opener, savvy?”

“I savvy; light away I bling cans from galley,” answered the cook,
and in a few minutes dinner was suspended and forgotten, while the
mess table was converted into a workbench on which I opened cans and
poured the contents into a large tureen. In every can we found drops
of solder, mostly tiny! Evidently when the canned tomatoes were stewed
before being served, the hot acid juices of the cooking tomatoes
completely dissolved the fine lead pellets. They had never been noticed
till a few drops large enough to escape complete solution had come
through for Dan to bite on!

We called the sick doctor from his bunk. He promptly got his chemicals
and then and there tested the hot stewed tomatoes already served for
dinner. The percentage of lead in them was far above anything found in
our water. No question about it now, the tomatoes were the cause—our
mysterious lead poisoning was at last solved!

But the captain was still both perplexed and worried. Perplexed,
because from the day we entered the ice, we had had canned tomatoes
four times a week. Why hadn’t we been poisoned before and why were some
of us apparently still unaffected? He was worried, because if we gave
up tomatoes, our last source of anything like vegetables, what (with
our lime-juice now practically gone) over the long months to come was
going to save us from scurvy?

Dr. Ambler quickly resolved both difficulties by pointing out that as
for the perplexity, till May came, we had had tomatoes but four times a
week while since then we had had them daily, thus practically doubling
the lead dosage and nearly as promptly starting the trouble. As for
the reason why some were victims and some not—of the bad cases, Chipp,
weak already from overwork and in poor condition, was a natural victim;
Newcomb, little resistant to anything, another; as for himself and the
bluejackets who were a little less affected, they were just somewhat
more susceptible than some of the rest of us, but in a short time the
lead would have got us all. Tong Sing’s case, worse than anybody’s, he
had to confess he couldn’t explain, but Ah Sam could and quickly did
make it crystal clear,

“Cholly Tong Sing, he likee tomato! He eat plenty, allee same
bleakfast, dinner, supper!”

All we need do to prevent scurvy was go back to the issue of tomatoes
only four times a week, which quantity of lead absorption we had before
apparently withstood. In addition we tried to reduce the lead still
further by having Ah Sam carefully strain out and remove all pellets
of solder _before_ cooking, thus keeping the lead content down to the
minimum, that is, whatever the cold tomatoes had already dissolved.

So with Ah Sam clearing away the mess of emptied cans, we went back
to finish our dinner, lukewarm salt beef only now; silent again,
wondering, if we had to stay in the Arctic another year, whether it
was preferable to eschew the tomatoes and die of scurvy or to continue
eating them and pass away of chronic lead poisoning.

The day dragged along. We were in the middle of May, it being the 16th.
Our rapid drift continued through the afternoon, more westerly than
northerly, but either was perfectly all right with us. The ice was
“livelier,” cracks and water leads showed up more frequently, the ship
was often jolted by submerged masses of ice, and not so far away as
earlier in the spring, high ridges of broken floes were piling up all
around us. Then in the early evening after supper, from Mr. Dunbar who
more out of habit than hope had crawled up to the crow’s-nest for a
look around, came the cry,

“LAND!”

And sure enough, there was land! Off to the westward lay an unknown
island!

The crew of the _Jeannette_ was delirious with excitement. Instead
of ice, there was _land_ to look at, something we had dully begun to
assume had somehow ceased to exist on this globe. And we had discovered
it! In exploration, our voyage was no longer a blank! In honor of that,
Captain De Long immediately ordered served out to all hands a double
ration of rum.

Not since March, 1880, when Wrangel Land last disappeared from sight,
had we seen land. As yet we could not see much of this island, nor even
make out its distance, but somewhere between thirty and seventy miles
off it stood, in black and white against the sky and the ice, masked
a little by fog over part of it. But our imaginations ran riot over
_our_ island! That must have been the land toward which the ducks and
geese were flying, and when we got there, what a feast awaited us! Some
eagle-eyed observers clearly spotted reindeer on its cliffs; others
even more eagle-eyed plainly distinguished the bucks from the does! Our
mouths, dry from chewing on salt beef, watered in eager anticipation.

De Long, positively glowing, hugged Dunbar for discovering our island
and looking happily off toward it, exclaimed,

“Fourteen months without anything but ice and sky makes this look like
an oasis in the desert! Look at it, it’s our all in all! How bears
must swarm on _our_ island, Dunbar! And if you want to tell me that
it contains a gold mine that’ll make us all as rich as the treasury
without its debts, I’ll believe you! _Our_ island must have everything!”

Even the sick, who came up on deck for a glimpse, were cheered by
the sight, all, that is, save poor Danenhower, who nevertheless came
up with the others, at least to look in that direction, knowing well
enough that he alone of all of us would never see our island; that
through the heavily smoked glass over his one remaining eye he could
hardly see the bulwarks, let alone the distant island we had at last
discovered!

Longer than anyone else, De Long stayed on deck that night, gazing off
toward the island, criticizing it, guessing its distance, wishing for a
favorable gale to drive us towards it, and finally before going to bed,
looking carefully again at it to make sure it had not melted away.

And when at last I dragged him below to rest, he murmured knowing well
the island could be only at most a little mass of volcanic rock,

“Melville, beside this stupendous island, the other events of the day
sink into insignificance!”

For the next week, we drifted northwest with fair speed toward our
island, with the water shoaling and the ice getting more active. By
several bearings as we moved along, we discovered that when first
sighted our island was thirty-four miles off. The question of making a
landing began immediately to be debated, but obviously for the first
few days, we were not yet at the closest point, so no decision was then
arrived at. For the next three days, it blew hard, during which time we
caught but few glimpses of our island as we drove northwest with the
ice. When the gale abated on May 24, we got some sights and found to
our pleased surprise that we were in latitude 77° 16′ N., longitude
159° 33′ E. 77° North! Another parallel of latitude left in our frozen
wake; we were now moving steadily on toward the Pole!

But that was not all for May 24. Going aloft himself in the morning,
De Long saw another island! Off to the westward it lay, closer to us
even than our first island; and in addition, from all the lanes which
had opened up in the pack, more water than he had seen since September,
1879. This second island, a little more calmly added to our discoveries
than the first one, was a most welcome sight. The water however was
nothing but a tantalizing vision, for none of the lanes were connected
nor did they lead anywhere, least of all toward our islands, both about
thirty miles away from us and from each other.

Having two islands now on our hands, we could no longer refer to
the first simply as _our_ island, as we had before lovingly done in
mentioning it, for was not the second equally ours? So it becoming
necessary to distinguish between them in the future, De Long took
thought like Adam of old, and named them—the first after our ship
and our ship’s godmother, Jeannette Island; and the second after our
sponsor’s mother, Henrietta Island. Having thus taken care of our
sponsor’s sister and his mother, De Long looked confidently forward
to new discoveries on which he might bestow the name of our sponsor
himself.

Meanwhile, the question of landing on either or both of our islands
came again to the fore, the weather having cleared once more. Jeannette
Island had dropped astern during our strong drift in the gale, while on
Henrietta Island we were closing steadily. De Long decided therefore on
May 30, six days after we had discovered it, to send a landing party
over the ice to take possession of Henrietta Island and to explore it.

The journey would evidently be a dangerous one over broken and moving
ice, with worst of all, the ship steadily moving with the ice away from
the land. Most opinions were adverse to success, but Captain De Long
ordered the trip, feeling that a knowledge of that island as a base to
fall back on would be invaluable in case of disaster to the ship, and
exceedingly desirous also of erecting a stone cairn there in which to
leave a record of our wanderings and whereabouts (this, I think, though
De Long never expressed it so, as a permanent clue to our fate should
we be swallowed forever by the pack threatening us).

Not as any compliment to me, but out of sheer necessity, De Long
selected me to take charge of the expeditionary party and make the
attempt to land. I was the only commissioned officer of the Navy
available; Danenhower, Chipp, and Ambler were incapacitated in varying
degree; the captain himself, anxious as he was to have the honor of
being first to plant our flag on newly discovered soil, dared not leave
the ship to the only one other seagoing officer still on deck, the
whaler Dunbar. So by a process of simple elimination, I was given the
doubtful honor of leading. To help me were assigned Mr. Dunbar and four
picked men from the crew—Quartermaster Nindemann and Erichsen, one of
our biggest seamen, from the deck force; with Bartlett, fireman, and
Sharvell, coalheaver, from my black gang, the latter to act as cook.

With these men, one sledge, a dinghy to ferry us over any open water,
provisions for seven days (including forty-two ounces of the inevitable
lime-juice and eleven gallons of distilled water but no tomatoes),
navigating instruments, fifteen dogs, and the silken ensign which Emma
De Long had made for the _Jeannette_ as the particular banner to be
used in taking possession, we shoved off from the vessel’s side on May
31, cheered by all the remaining ship’s company. Henrietta Island was
twelve miles off over the pack, bearing southwest by west. The ship,
to guide me in my return, hoisted a huge black flag, eleven feet square
at the main.

Our sledge carried between boat and supplies, a load of 1900 pounds,
nearly a ton. With Dunbar running ahead as a leader to encourage the
dogs and the other five of us heaving on the sledge to help along,
it was as much as we could do to get it underway and moving slowly
over the rough ice away from the ship. The harnessed dogs behaved as
usual—they were not interested in any cooperation with us. In the first
fifteen minutes, several broke out of harness and returned to the ship,
there of course to be recaptured by our shipmates and dragged back to
the sledge.

Of our terrible three day journey over only twelve miles of live ice
toward Henrietta Island, I have little to say save that it was a
nightmare. We made five miles the first day, during which we lost sight
of the _Jeannette_ and her black flag; and four miles the second. At
that point, Mr. Dunbar, who had been doing most of the guiding while
the rest of us pushed on the sledge to help the dogs, became in spite
of his dark glasses totally snow-blind and could no longer see his
way, even to stumble along over the ice in our wake. So we perched
him inside the dinghy, thus increasing our load, and on the third day
set out again in a snow storm, guided now only by compass toward the
invisible island. In the afternoon, the storm suddenly cleared, and
there half a mile from us, majestic in its grandeur, stood the island!
Precipitous black cliffs, lifting a sheer four hundred feet above the
ice, towered over us; a little inland, four times that height, rose
cloud-wreathed mountains, with glaciers startlingly white against the
black peaks filling their every gorge.

As we stood there, awestruck at the spectacle, viewing this unknown
land on which man had never yet set foot, the silence of those
desolate mountains, awful and depressing, gripped us, driving home the
loneliness, the utter separation from the world of men of this Arctic
island!

We were now only half a mile from the shore which marked our goal,
but as we gazed across it, cold dread seized us. What a half mile!
The drifting pack, in which miles away the unresisting _Jeannette_
was being carried along, was here in contact with immovable mountains
which could and did resist. As a result, around the bases of those
cliffs, were piled up broken floes by the millions, the casualties in
that incessant combat between pack and rock. While moving past between
were vast masses of churning ice, forever changing shape, tumbling and
grinding away at each other as that stately procession of floebergs
hurried along. And it was over this pandemonium, that if ever we were
to plant our flag on that island, we had to pass!

To get sledge, boat, and all our provisions across was utterly
hopeless. So I made a _cache_ on a large floe of our dinghy, stowing
in it all except one day’s provisions and most of our gear, raising
an oar flying a small black flag vertically on the highest hummock
of that floe as a marker. Next there was Dunbar. Terribly down in
the mouth at having collapsed and become nothing but a hindrance, he
begged to be left on the ice rather than encumber us further. But to
leave an old man blinded and helpless on a drifting floe which we might
never find again, was not to be thought of. In spite of his distressed
pleadings, I put him on the sledge together with our scanty provisions
and instruments, and then with a lashing to the neck of the lead dog
who had no intention whatever of daring that devil’s churn, we started,
myself in the lead.

It was hell, over floes tossing one minute high in air, the next
sinking under our feet. Splashing, rolling, tumbling, we scrambled from
floe to floe, wet, frozen, terrified. Only by big Erichsen’s truly
herculean strength in bodily lifting out the sledge when it stuck fast
did we get over safely. When at last, soaked and exhausted, we crawled
up on the quiescent ice fringing the island, we were barely able to
haul Dunbar, dripping like a seal, off the sledge and onto the more
solid ice.

We paused there briefly while little Sharvell, his teeth still
chattering from fright, clumsily prepared our cold supper. Then
marching over the fixed ice, I as commander first set foot on the
island and in a loud voice claimed it as a possession of the United
States. I invited my shipmates ashore, and in a formal procession led
by Hans Erichsen (who as a special reward was carrying our silken
ensign) they landed also on the island, where Erichsen proudly jammed
the flagstaff into the earth.

With a few precious drops (and precious few) of medicinal whiskey, I
christened the spot HENRIETTA ISLAND, after which we six sick seamen
drank the remainder of the medicine in honor of the event, and then
revelling in a brief tramp over real earth for the first time in over
twenty-one of the longest months men have ever spent, we hauled our
sleeping bags about our weary bones and lay down, at last to rest again
on _terra firma_.

At ten a.m. we woke, startled to have slept so long, for we were not to
stay on the island longer than twenty-four hours. On a bold headland
nearby, we built our cairn, burying in it two cases, one zinc and one
copper, containing the records with which Captain De Long had provided
us. This promontory, Mr. Dunbar named “Melville Head” in my honor, but
after considering its bareness of vegetation, I decided “Bald Head” was
more appropriate and so entered it on the chart which I now proceeded
to make.

With Bartlett and Erichsen reading instruments while I sketched, we
ran a compass survey which took all day. From the high headlands, the
_Jeannette_ was plainly visible in the ice to the northeast, a black
speck against the white pack, but we paid little attention to her,
being anxious only to finish. While this was going on, Sharvell and
Nindemann searched the valleys, shooting a few of the birds nesting in
great profusion among the rocks. But aside from the birds they saw no
other game—no bears, no reindeer, no seals—not a trace of animal life
on that island.

In the early evening, our survey finished, we harnessed again our
staked-out dogs, furled our banner, and started back.

Our retreat through the roaring ice about the island we found even
more difficult than our landing. On one small floe, rounded like a
whaleback, we took refuge for a moment in that cascading ice. We
clung on in terror when it began rolling beneath us, evidently about
to capsize. That to our dismay it finally did, but providentially we
were scraped off as it went over onto the main floe. From this more
solid footing we dragged up out of the icy water by their harnesses
the drenched dogs and the even more drenched Dunbar clinging to the
submerged sledge.

Back once more on ice moving only as part of the great Arctic pack, we
breathed a little more freely, shook ourselves like the dogs to get rid
of surplus water before it froze on us, and headed for the spot toward
which I figured our abandoned boat had drifted. There was nothing
we could recognize, there were none of our previous tracks we could
follow; the arrangement of that pack had changed as completely as a
shuffled deck of cards. Amongst high hummocks we could see but a little
distance and I was becoming thoroughly alarmed at the prospect of never
finding our boat again. Then with the weather clearing a bit, from the
top of the highest hummock around, Erichsen spied in the distance the
oar marking our boat. We hastened toward it, truly thankful, for we had
already made away with the single day’s rations which we had carried
with us, and had no longer a bite left to eat.

For two days in miserable weather we stumbled back toward the ship,
steering a compass course through continuous snow. To add to our
troubles, Nindemann came down with severe cramps (lead, of course) and
Erichsen, who since Dunbar’s collapse had been guiding the dogs, with
snow-blindness. So pitching our tent in the snow, we camped our second
night, while I dragged out the medicine chest with which I had been
provided by Dr. Ambler and began to read the directions. The remedy for
cramps was “Tincture of capsicum in cognac.” Henrietta Island having
seen the last of the cognac, the best liquid substitute available in
the chest appeared to be a bottle of sweet oil, which I drew out,
together with the bottle marked “Tinc. capsicum.”

My own fingers were cold and numbed, so Erichsen who wanted some of
the sweet oil to rub on his chafed body which he had stripped for that
purpose, volunteered to draw the corks for me. First pouring some of
the sweet oil over his hands to soften them, he pulled the second cork,
but so clumsily with his frozen paws, that he spilled a liberal portion
of the tincture of capsicum over his badly chapped hands to discover
promptly that compared to tincture of capsicum, liquid fire was a
cooling, soothing lotion!

Startled, Erichsen involuntarily rubbed the mixture on his bared
rump and immediately went wild. To the intense interest of his
shipmates, down went Erichsen into the snow, trying to extinguish the
burn, wiggling his huge form like a snake on fire. Little Sharvell,
solicitously taking his arm, piped up,

“’Ere, matey, let me lead you to a ’igher ’ummock! Bli’ me if I don’t
think ye’ll soon melt yer way clean through this floe!”

Nindemann began to laugh so hard at this that he completely forgot his
cramps, while Dunbar, between his own groans, sang out cheerily,

“Hans, are ye hot enough yet to make the snow hiss? If ye are, when we
get back, the chief can put out the forecastle stove and use ye for a
heater!”

Amid the general merriment, joined in by all hands except poor Hans,
big Erichsen finally managed to cool himself down in the snow enough so
that he could stand an administration of pure sweet oil to the affected
parts. Carefully applied by me, this soothed him enough to permit his
dressing again, and with most of us in a hilarious frame of mind, we
slid into our sleeping bags.

Next day, our sixth since departure, we set out again at 3 A.M., and
mirth having proved a better cure than medicine, with all hands in fair
shape except Dunbar who still had to ride the sledge. Within an hour we
sighted the ship. This cheered us further. And the dogs recognizing the
masts and realizing that at last they were pulling toward home, for the
first time put their hearts and shoulders into the job. Over bad ice,
we made such excellent progress that by 6 A.M. we were within a mile of
the ship, apparently without having been sighted from there.

At this point, I ran into an open water lead with running ice, and
unable to find a detour, had determined to launch the dinghy and ferry
across when a sledge runner gave way and left us flat in the snow. We
repaired the runner, but it was evident that it would never carry all
the weight again. So I unloaded the boat, ferried the sledge across,
and then sent it ahead with Dunbar only on it while Sharvell and I
stayed behind with the dinghy and all the rest of our sledge load of
equipment.

We were all soon sighted and a party came out from the ship. There
on the ice, Dr. Ambler met me, and undemonstrative though he was, so
overjoyed was he at our safe return that he gave me a regular bear hug.

Approaching the gangway, we caught sight of Captain De Long,
enthusiastically waving to us from the deck, running up the ladder to
the bridge for a better view. Then to our horror we saw him, absorbed
only by our progress, step directly into the path of the flying
windmill! In an instant, before anyone could cry out in warning, down
came one of the huge arms, whirling before a fresh breeze, hitting him
a terrific blow on the head and sending him reeling backwards down the
ladder!

Fortunately the quartermaster caught him, breaking his fall, but Ambler
and I, forgetting all else, rushed for the gangway, arriving on deck to
find the captain crawling on hands and knees, stunned and bleeding from
a great gash in his head. Ambler hurriedly bent over him, carefully
feeling his skull, and announced thankfully there was no evident
fracture. He helped the semi-conscious captain to his cabin, where he
immediately went to work stitching up a deep four-inch long wound. By
the time this was done and the bandages applied, De Long at last came
out of his daze. But calloused as I was by war and many hardships it
nevertheless brought tears to my eyes when his first question after his
fluttering eyelids opened on the doctor bending over him, was not about
himself but a faint query,

“How about Melville and his men, doctor? Are they all safe?”




CHAPTER XXVI


On June 5, 1881, a Sunday morning, we got back to the _Jeannette_. In
the early afternoon, in honor of our safe return. De Long with his eyes
hardly visible through his bandages, conducted a Thanksgiving Service,
attended only by Ambler and myself, for the other two usual members
of the congregation, Chipp and Dunbar, were both on the sicklist. In
further celebration of the event, the captain ordered in the evening
the issue of a double ration of whiskey forward, which ceremony
conducted in the forecastle by Jack Cole drew a somewhat larger
attendance, I believe.

Our sicklist was now considerable—Danenhower, Chipp, Newcomb, Dunbar,
and Alexey, with the skipper himself really belonging there, but
nevertheless permitted by the doctor to be up so long as he stayed off
the ice for a few days till his cut had a fair chance to start to heal.
Chipp, Newcomb, and Alexey were still badly off from lead poisoning,
but Tong Sing, our steward, had recovered sufficiently to go back on
duty and was now mainly engaged in tending the sick when not actually
serving.

From this unsatisfactory state of our personnel, I turned my attention
after a week’s absence once more to the _Jeannette_ and what was going
on round her. Henrietta Island was rapidly dropping abaft our beam as
we drifted westward past its northern side and it was evident that we
would soon drop it out of sight. Jeannette Island had already vanished
from our world.

But the action of the ice about us attracted most attention. Not
since November, 1879, had we seen so much moving ice near the ship,
the effect undoubtedly of nearby Henrietta Island. The day after my
return, we found our floe reduced to an ice island about a mile one
way and half of that the other, with ourselves about a hundred yards
from the western edge, while all about us was a tumbling procession
of floebergs, shrieking and howling as they rolled past. Leads opened
and closed endlessly in the near distance with ridges of broken floes
shooting thirty feet above the pack. The roaring of the breaking floes
sounded like continuous thunder. And in all this turmoil our ice island
with the _Jeannette_ in it moved majestically along. Meanwhile we from
our decks regarded it, thankful that our floe was not breaking up to
crush our ship and leave our heavy boats and sledges to the mercies of
that chaos, a half mile of which with a sledge lightly loaded only, off
Henrietta Island we had barely managed to survive.

Another day passed, leaving the island in our wake. The moving ice
closed up again with long rows of piled up floes all about us, one
huge ridge of blocks seven to eight feet thick riding the pack not a
hundred and fifty yards away from our bulwarks. And yet one more day
and the captain got a sight, showing we were going due west at a fair
rate, which if continued, unless we turned north, would ultimately
bring us out into the Atlantic, though the chances seemed better for a
resumption of our northwest drift toward the Pole. But toward either of
these, now that we had some discoveries to add to the world’s charts,
we looked forward hopefully. At any rate, since we had to leave the
matter to the pack, for the present our motto was obviously “Westward
ho!”

June 10th came with our drift still steadily westward, clear weather,
and the temperature about 25° F., well below freezing though above
zero, which for us made it very pleasant weather. Alexey came off the
sicklist, and so also did Dunbar; leaving only Chipp as a bedridden
case, and Newcomb, up but acting as if he were exceedingly miserable,
which I guess he was. Danenhower, permanently on the sicklist, was
allowed on deck an hour a day for exercise that the doctor hoped would
gradually restore his health and save his one good eye, which now
showed some signs of getting over its sympathetic inflammation. During
these hourly periods, Dan was sternly ordered to keep in the shade and
wear his almost opaque shield, but unfortunately our overbold navigator
stepped out into the sun and pulled aside the glass, attempting to get
at least one decent look around. Instead he had an instant relapse of
his inflamed eye which nearly drove both Ambler and the captain wild.

Fortunately, the captain had had all his bandages save one small one
removed from his injured skull by now, or I think he would have ripped
them off in his attempts to tear his hair over the results of Dan’s
reckless disobedience.

Except for this unfortunate mishap, June 10 passed away pleasantly
enough. With no more thought than that it was just another day in the
pack, most of us turned in at 10 P.M., concerned only about whether
our drift next day would continue west or change to northwest. But
I, having the watch from 9 P.M. to midnight, remained on deck. At 11
P.M., I was disturbed by a succession of heavy shocks to the ship
which increased in frequency till as midnight approached there was
such a thumping and thundering of cracking ice about us and so much
reverberation as the shocks drummed against our hollow hull, that the
uneasy deck beneath me quivered as I had not felt it since two years
before when we had been underway with all sail set. So violent was
this disturbance that De Long, asleep below, lost all thought of rest,
pulled on his clothes and scrambled on deck to see what was up.

With the sun even at midnight above the horizon, he had little
difficulty seeing, and of course none at all in hearing. About eighty
yards from us, a lane had opened in the pack some ten feet wide, while
all about us as we watched, cracks were zigzagging across the surface
of our floe to the accompaniment of thunderous detonations as the thick
ice split. And all the while, the heavily listed _Jeannette_, still
fast in the ice, rocked in her bed as in an earthquake.

For ten trying minutes this went on, and then with a terrific report
like a bomb exploding, the floe split wide apart beneath us, the
_Jeannette_ lurched wildly to port and suddenly slid out of her cradle
into open water! There she rolled drunkenly for a moment, till coming
finally erect she lay free of the ice at last in a swiftly widening bay!

So rapidly did all this happen that the skipper, clinging to the rail
of his reeling bridge, saw the situation change from that of a ship
frozen in to one underway before he could give a single order. But
immediately after, with the ship still rocking heavily,

“All hands!” was echoing fore and aft, and I rushed below to close
the gates in our watertight bulkheads and stand by my steam pumps,
not knowing what effect this sudden release of our bow from the ice
might have on that leak we had been pumping, so it seemed, forever.
Paradoxically, however, the leak immediately decreased, probably
because our freed stem floated several feet higher than before, so
I returned quickly on deck to find the crew under the captain’s
directions busily engaged in preparing to re-ship our long-disused
rudder. This, delayed by frozen gudgeons, took some hours. But when
it was completed, and everything meanwhile had been cleared away from
booms and yards for making sail, the _Jeannette_ for the first time
since 1879 (though we never saw the irony of that till later) was again
ready to maneuver as a ship.

Amidst the hoarse orders of the bosun and the noise of seamen clearing
running rigging and scrambling out on frosty yards to loose the
preventer lashings on the long-unused sails, I climbed to the bridge.
There I found De Long calmly smoking his pipe while he eyed the smooth
black water in our bay, now perhaps a quarter of a mile wide between
the separated edges of our late island.

“Shall I fire up the main boilers, captain, and couple up the propeller
shaft?” I asked anxiously.

“How much coal have you left, chief?” he countered.

“Only fifteen tons, sir.”

Fifteen tons. That would keep us going only three days normal steaming.
De Long thought a moment.

“No, chief, don’t light off. There’s no place for the engines to take
us anyway and we might burn up all our fuel just lying here. Save the
coal; we may need it to keep us from freezing next winter. We’ll make
sail if we have to move, but just now, all we can do is get some lines
ashore and tie up to that starboard floe, till we see what the pack is
about.”

So instead of trying to move, Cole ran out the lines to ice-anchors on
our bow and quarter and we moored to the floe.

Then began a desperate fight with De Long struggling to save his ship
should the ice close in again before it broke up completely and let us
escape. A measurement nearby showed the ice sixteen feet thick; deeper
than our keel. If the pack, pressing in on us now, got a fair grip on
our sides, we should be squeezed between thicker ice than ever before
we had been, in a giant nutcracker indeed. But what could we do about
it? The water lead was short, there was no escape from it ahead or
astern. Just one chance offered itself. A little ahead of where we lay,
on our port bow was a narrow canal joining two wider bays in the parted
pack. If we could only fill that canal up with heavy floes, they might
take the major thrust of the closing pack, thus saving us from the full
pressure. Savagely the men on watch turned to and fought with lines
and grapnels, hooking loose floebergs everywhere and dragging them
through the water into that canal, anchoring them there as best they
could.

We had made fair progress on filling the gap, when at 7:30 A.M. the ice
started to advance. The sight of that massive pack slowly closing on
us like the jaws of doom, quickened our muscles, and we strained like
madmen shoving drifting ice into the opening ahead. Just then, as if
playing with us, the pack halted dead, giving us a better chance to
finish the job.

De Long came down off the bridge to encourage the men with the
grapnels. Standing on the edge of the canal, directing the work, was
our ice-pilot. Approaching him along the brink of the pack, the captain
looked down through the cold sea at the submerged edge of the floe, the
blue-white ice there glimmering faintly through the water till lost in
the depths; then he looked back at the _Jeannette_ with her tall masts
and spreading yards erect and square at last across the Arctic sky,
while her stout hull, stark black against the ice, seemed grimly to
await the onslaught.

“Well, Dunbar,” asked the skipper, “what do you think of it?”

Dunbar, worn and dour, had his mind made up.

“No use doing this, cap’n,” he replied dully, indicating the men
heaving on the grapnel lines. “Before tonight, she’ll either be under
this floe or on top of it! Better start those men, instead o’ hauling
ice, at getting overboard the emergency provisions!”

De Long shook his head. He couldn’t agree. In terrible winter weather,
the sturdy _Jeannette_ had often beaten the pack before; he couldn’t
believe that she would fail us now.

At ten o’clock, the ice started to advance once more. Our job in
plugging the canal was finished. We had done all that man could do.
Now it was up to the _Jeannette_. But as we watched that pack come
on, flat floes and tilted floebergs thick and jagged, urged forward
by endless miles of surging ice behind, our hearts sank. In spite of
our thick sides and heavy trusses, the contest between hollow ship and
solid pack looked so unequal.

On came the pack. The bay narrowed, thinned down to a ribbon of water
on our port side, vanished altogether. The attacking floes reached our
sides, started to squeeze. The _Jeannette_, tightly gripped, began to
screech and groan from end to end. With bow lifted and stem depressed,
she heeled sharply 16° to starboard, thrown hard against the floe
there, while we grabbed frantically at whatever was at hand to avoid
being hurled into the scuppers. Then to our intense relief, the ice
we had pushed into the canal ahead came into play, took the further
thrust, and stopped the advance, so that for the moment everything
quieted down, leaving our ship in a precarious position, but at least
intact. Our spirits rose. Perhaps we had saved her!

Thus we lay for two hours till eight bells struck. Cole, a little
uncertain as to routine now, glanced up at the bridge. De Long nodded,
so Cole piped down for mess, and with our ship pretty well on her beam
ends, one watch laid below. There clinging to the stanchions, they ate
the dinner which the imperturbable Ah Sam, still cooking in all that
turmoil, had somehow, by lashing his pots down on the tilted galley
range perhaps, managed to prepare.

At two bells, mess was over and most of us on deck again, hanging to
the port rail. Soon we got another jam, listing us a little further
and still more raising our tilted bow, but the _Jeannette_ took it
well and I did not consider it anything serious, when suddenly, to
everybody’s alarm, my machinist Lee, whose station at the time was down
on the fireroom floor running the little distiller boiler, shot out the
machinery hatch to the deck, shouting,

“We’re sinking! The ice is coming through the side!”

“Pipe down there, Lee!” ordered the captain sharply. “Don’t go
screaming that way to all hands like a scared old woman. You’re an
experienced seaman; if you’ve got any report to make, make it to me as
if you were one! Come up here!”

Lee, white and shaking, climbed up the bridge ladder, his
wound-weakened hips threatening to collapse under him. The captain
beckoned me, then faced Lee.

“What is it now, Lee?”

“Her seams are opening below, sir! The sides are giving way!”

“Is that all?” asked De Long bruskly. “What are you frightened at then?
Here, Melville; lay below with him and find out what’s wrong!”

With the reluctant Lee following, I climbed down into the fireroom.
There was no water there.

“What in hell’s the matter with you, Lee?” I asked angrily. “Do you
want to shame me and the whole black gang for cowards? What set you
off?”

“Look there, chief!” cried the agitated machinist. He led me into the
starboard side bunker. We were well below the waterline. The air there
was so full of flying coal dust it was difficult to breathe, and as the
ship thumped against the ice outside, new clouds of dust continuously
rose from our panting sides. “Look at that! She’s going fast!” yelled
Lee, indicating with his torch. I looked.

The closely-fitted seams in the thick layer of planking forming our
inner skin had sprung apart an inch or more, and as we watched, these
cracks opened and closed like an accordion with startling frequency;
but outboard of that layer we had a double thickness of heavy planking
which constituted our outer shell, and though I could see traces of
oakum squeezing out of the seams there, that outer planking, pressed
by the ice hard in against the massive timbers of our ribs and trusses,
was holding beautifully and there were no leaks.

“Keep your head next time, Lee,” I advised gruffly as I came out of
the bunker. “We’re doing fine! Now mind that distiller, and don’t salt
up the water!” Blinking my eyes rapidly to clear them of coal dust,
I climbed on deck to inform the captain that there was no cause for
alarm—yet.

So we lay for the next two hours, with the poor _Jeannette_ groaning
and panting like a woman in labor as the pack worked on her. At six
bells, the captain, confident now that the worst was over and that
she would pull through, took sudden thought of the future. The ship
was a remarkable sight; what a picture she would make to print in the
_Herald_ on her return.

“Melville,” said the captain, puffing calmly away at his meerschaum,
“take the camera out on the ice and see what you can get in the way of
a photograph.”

“Aye, aye, sir!”

Early in the voyage, when Collins had been relieved of that task, I
had become official photographer. I went to the darkroom, got out the
camera, tripod, black hood, and a few of the plates which I myself had
brought along and for which I had a developer. Stepping from our badly
listed starboard rail directly onto the ice there, I picked a spot
about fifty yards off on the starboard bow and set up my clumsy rig.

The view was marvelous. Heeling now 23° to starboard, the spar deck,
covered with men clinging to the rigging, the rails, and the davits
to keep from sliding into the scuppers, showed up clearly; while with
her black hull standing sharply out against the white pack, and with
bow and bowsprit pointing high in air and stem almost buried, the
_Jeannette_ looked like a vessel lifting while she rolled to a huge
ice wave. Never again would I see a ship like that!

I exposed a plate, then, for insurance, another; and folding up my rig,
stumbled back over the ice to the ship, laid below to the darkroom
on the berth deck, poured out my chemicals and proceeded with much
difficulty (because of the extraordinary list) to develop the plates,
which in that climate had to be done immediately or they would spoil.
In the vague red light of a bull’s-eye lantern, I was struggling in the
darkroom with this job, when the ship got a tremendous squeeze, the
berth deck buckled up under my feet, and amidst the roar of cracking
timbers, I heard Jack Cole’s shout,

“All Hands! Stations for Abandon Ship!”

Leaving the plates in the solution but extinguishing the red lantern, I
hastily closed the darkroom door and ran on deck.

“Water coming up now in all the holds! I think that last push tore the
keel out of her!” announced the captain briefly as I ran by him toward
the cabin to get out the chronometers and the compasses. “I’m afraid
she’s through at last, chief!”

Behind me as I ran, I heard in rapid succession the orders to lower
away the boats, to push overboard the sledges, and to commence passing
out on the ice our emergency store of pemmican. Carefully I lifted out
the two chronometers and the four small compasses which it was my job
to save. Below me I could hear water gushing up into the afterhold,
while from above on the poop deck came the creaking of frozen cordage
and blocks as the falls ran out and our heavy boats dropped to the
ice. As tenderly as I could, I gripped the chronometers, sprang out on
the ice, and deposited my burden in the first cutter, already hauled a
little clear of the ship’s side.

The next few minutes, against a background of rushing water, screeching
ice, and crunching timbers, were a blur of heaving over the side and
dragging well clear our pemmican, sledges, boats, and supplies.
Lieutenant Chipp, so sick in his berth that he could not stand, was
dressed by Danenhower, and then the two invalids went together over the
side, the half-blinded navigator carrying the executive officer who
guided him.

I got up my knapsack from my stateroom, tossed it into the cabin in
the poop, and then turned to on our buckled deck in getting overboard
our stores while below us the ship was flooding fast. De Long, himself
checking the provisions as they went over the side, looked anxiously
round the spar deck, then asked sharply of the bosun,

“Where’s the lime-juice?”

Our last cask of lime-juice, only one-third full now, was nowhere in
sight.

“Down in the forehold, sor,” said Cole briefly.

The forehold? Hopeless to get at anything there; the forehold was
already flooded. De Long’s face fell. There would be no distilled water
any more; no more vegetables at all; nothing but pemmican to eat and
salty snow from the floes to drink on our retreat over the ice, a bad
combination for scurvy. The solitary anti-scorbutic we could carry was
that lime-juice. He had to have it.

“Get it up!” ordered De Long savagely.

“I’ll try, sor,” answered the bosun dubiously. He went forward
accompanied by several seamen, peered down from the spar deck into
that hold. Water was already pouring in a torrent from the forehold
hatch, cascading away over the berth deck into the lee scuppers. It
was impossible to get into the hold except by swimming down against
the current through a narrow crack left in the hatch opening on the
high port side which, the ship being so badly listed to starboard,
was still exposed. Yet even if a man got through, what could he do in
the blackness of the swirling water in that flooded hold to find and
break out the one right cask among dozens of others submerged there?
But then that barrel, being only partly full, might be floating on the
surface on the high side to port. There was a slight chance. Jack Cole
looked round at the rough seamen about him.

“Any of yez a foine swimmer?” he asked, none too hopefully, for aside
from the danger in this case, sailors are notoriously poor swimmers.

“I try vot I can do maybe, bosun.” A man stepped forth, huge Starr,
our Russian seaman (his name probably a contraction of Starovski), the
biggest man on board. “Gif me a line.”

Swiftly Cole threw a bowline round Starr’s waist. No use giving him a
light; the water pouring through would extinguish it. He would have to
grope in blackness. Starr dropped down to the berth deck. Standing in
the water on the low side of the hatch, he stooped, with a shove of his
powerful legs pushed himself through against the current, and vanished
with a splash into the flooded hold. Cole started to pay out line.

How Starr, swimming in ice water in that Stygian hole amidst all sorts
of floating wreckage there, ever hoped to find that one barrel, I don’t
know. But he did know that the ship, flooded far above the point at
which she should normally sink, was held up only by the ice, and that
if for an instant, the pack should suddenly relax its grip, she would
plunge like a stone and while the others on the spar deck might escape,
he, trapped in the hold, would go with her.

With a thumping heart, Jack Cole “fished” the line on Starr, paying
out, taking in, as the unseen swimmer fumbled amongst the flotsam in
the black hold. Then to his astonishment, the lime-juice cask popped up
through the hatch and following it, blowing like a whale, came Starr!
Another instant and Starr, tossing the barrel up like a toy, was back
on the spar deck, where all coming aft, Jack Cole proudly presented
his dripping seaman and the precious cask on his shoulder, to the
captain.

De Long, with his ship sinking under him, paused a moment to shake
Starr’s hand.

“A brave act, Starr, and a very valuable one. I’m proud of you! I’ll
not forget it. Now, bosun, get Starr here a stiff drink of whiskey from
those medical stores on the ice to thaw him out!”

The lime-juice, still borne by Starr, went over the side, the last of
our provisions. The floes round about the _Jeannette_ were littered
with boats, sledges, stores, and an endless variety of everything else
we could pitch overboard. With our supplies gone, I tried to get down
again on the berth deck aft to my stateroom to salvage my private
possessions, but I was too late. The water was rising rapidly there,
and was already halfway up the wardroom ladder, so I went back into
the cabin in the poop above, where I had before tossed my knapsack, to
retrieve it and get overboard myself.

The deck of the cabin was a mess of the personal belongings of all
the wardroom officers—clothes, papers, guns, instruments, bearskins,
stuffed gulls, that heavy walrus head over which Sharvell had once been
so concerned (and apparently now, rightly) and Heaven knows what else.
Pawing over the conglomerate heap was Newcomb, uncertain as to what he
should try to save. As I retreated upwards into the cabin before the
water rising on the wardroom ladder, De Long stepped into the cabin
also from his upper deck stateroom, and seeing only Newcomb fumbling
over the enormous pile of articles, inquired casually,

“Mr. Newcomb, is this all _your_ stuff?”

Pert as ever in spite of his illness, Newcomb replied with the only
statement from him that ever made me grin,

“No, sir; it’s only part of it!”

And even the captain, broken-hearted over his ship, looking at that
vast heap, stopped to laugh at that.

But from the way the deck was acting beneath me, there was little time
for mirth, so I seized my knapsack and walking more on the bulkhead
than on the deck, got outside the poop, followed by the captain
carrying some private papers, and Newcomb lugging only a shotgun.

Things moved rapidly now on the doomed _Jeannette_. The ship started to
lay far over on her beam ends, water rose to the starboard rail, the
smokestack broke off at its base, hanging only by the guys; and then
the ship, given another squeeze by the crowding ice, collapsed finally,
with her crumpled deck bulging slowly upward, her timbers snapping, and
the men in the port watch who were trying to snatch a last meal forward
from scraps in the galley, finding their escape up the companionway
ladder cut off by suddenly rising water, pouring like flies out through
the forecastle ventilator to slide immediately overboard onto the ice.

It was no longer possible, even on hands and knees, to stay on that
fearfully listed deck. Clinging to the shrouds, De Long ordered Cole to
hoist a service ensign to the mizzen truck, and then with a last look
upward over the almost vertical deck to see that all had cleared her,
he waved his cap to the flag aloft, cried chokingly,

“Good-by, old ship!” and leaped from the rigging to the ice.

Flooded, stove in, and buckled up, the _Jeannette_ was a wreck. The
pack had conquered her at last. Only that death grip with which the
floes still clung tenaciously to her kept her afloat. With heavy hearts
we turned our backs on the remains of that valiant ship, our home and
our shield from peril for two long years, and looked instead southward
where five hundred miles away across that terrible pack and the Arctic
Sea lay the north coast of Siberia and possible safety—if we could ever
get there.




CHAPTER XXVII


Our situation was now truly desperate. There we were, thirty-three men
cast away on drifting ice floes, our whereabouts and our fate, whether
yet alive or long since dead, totally unknown to the world we had left
two years before, completely beyond the reach of any possible relief
expedition. Five hundred miles away at the Lena Delta lay the nearest
shore, where from the charts in our possession, we might expect to fall
in on that frozen coast with native huts and villages such as long
before we had visited at Cape Serdze Kamen, and find even a slight
pretense of food and shelter and perhaps a little aid in getting over
the next thousand miles south into Siberia itself to civilization at
Yakutsk.

How much of that five hundred miles before us was ice and how much
was water, nobody knew. That a part of it, just north of Siberia, was
likely to be water in the summer time was certain, so we must drag our
boats with us across the pack between us and that open sea or else
ultimately, unable to cross it, perish when we came to the fringe of
the ice pack. A few uninhabited islands, the New Siberian Archipelago,
lay halfway along the route, but we could expect no aid there of any
kind nor any food. Grimly ironic on our Russian charts was the notice
that all visitors were prohibited from landing on the New Siberian
Islands unless they brought with them their own food, since the last
party permitted a few years before to go there as fossil ivory hunters
had all starved to death for lack of game.

But at the Lena Delta, the charts showed permanent settlements, and a
book we had of Dr. Petermann’s described in considerable detail the
villages and mode of life there. Magazine articles published and taken
with us just before we left San Francisco indicated that the Russian
government was then in 1879 about to open the Lena River for trading
steamers from its mouth to Yakutsk, a thousand miles inland. Since
it was now the middle of 1881 that should be completed and the river
steamers running.

So “On to the Lena Delta!” became our object in life, and to the Delta
we looked forward as our Promised Land. But getting there seemed
next to impossible. We were well acquainted with all previous Arctic
expeditions. Not one in that long and tragic history stretching back
three centuries, when disaster struck their ships, had ever faced a
journey over the polar pack back to safety half so long as what faced
us, and some on far shorter marches over the ice had perished to the
last man!

Gloomily we faced our situation. We would have to drag our boats; we
would have to drag our food; we were handicapped by one half-blind
officer, by another too weak to stand, by several men, Alexey and
Kuehne mainly, who, thrown on the ice, promptly had had a severe
relapse of cramps from lead poisoning, and by the knowledge that many
others of the crew were weakened by it and might break down at any time.

But worst of all we had to face was the pack itself. The most wretched
season of the year for traveling over it was thrust upon us. Under the
bright sun, the snow was too soft now to bear our sledges on its crust,
but the temperature, from 10° to 25° F., was too low to melt it and
clear it from our path. And as for the rough pack ice itself, I knew
best of all what traveling over that meant—the twelve mile journey to
Henrietta Island with a far lighter load per man and dog, had nearly
finished me and my five men. And here, how many hundreds of miles of
such ice we had to cross, God alone knew!

The loads we had to drag across the ice if we were to survive, were
enough to stagger the stoutest hearts. To carry our party over the open
water when we reached it, required three boats and the three boats
weighed four tons. And to keep ourselves alive over the minimum time
in which we could hope with any luck at all to reach Siberia, sixty
days, required three and a half tons of food. Seven and a half tons
at least of total deadweight to be dragged over broken Arctic ice on
a journey as long as the distance from New York halfway to Chicago!
And the dragging to be done practically altogether (for at most our
twenty-three remaining dogs could be expected to drag only one heavy
sledge out of our total of eight) by men as beasts of burden—before
that prospect we all but wilted.

But it was drag or die, and George Washington De Long was determined
that not one man should die if he had to kill him to prevent it.
For over De Long from the moment we were thrown on the ice had come
a hardness and a determination which were new to us. Gone was the
gravely courteous scholar, interested mainly in scientific discovery,
scrupulously anxious to hurt no one’s feelings if it could be avoided.
The Arctic ice had literally folded up his scientific expedition
beneath his feet, closing the books at 77° North, in his eyes
practically a complete failure. That part was all over, gone with
the ship, and with it vanished the scientist and the explorer whom
we thought we knew. In his place, facing the wilderness of ice about
us, stood now a strange naval officer with but a single purpose in
his soul—the fierce determination to get his men over that ice back
to the Lena Delta regardless of their hardships, regardless of their
sufferings, to keep them on their feet tugging at those inhuman burdens
even when they preferred to lie down in the snow and die in peace.

For five days after the crushing of our ship, we camped on the floes
nearby, sorting out stores, loading sledges, distributing clothes,
and incidentally nursing the sick. What he should take along was
in the forefront of every man’s mind. We had salvaged far more of
everything than we could possibly drag—what should be left behind? De
Long abruptly settled the question with an order limiting what was
to be taken to three boats, sixty days’ food, the ship’s papers and
records, navigating outfits, and the clothes each man wore including
his sleeping bag and his knapsack, the contents of which were strictly
prescribed. All else, regardless of personal value or desirability,
must be thrown away. That was particularly trying to the men in
freezing weather greedily eyeing the huge pile of furs, clothes, and
blankets tossed aside to be abandoned on the ice, but there was the
order—wear what you pleased in fur or cloth, trade what you had for
anything in the pile if it pleased you more, but when you were dressed
in the clothes of your choice, you left all else behind. The solitary
article excepted was fur boots or moccasins; of these each of us could
have three pairs, one on, one in his knapsack, and one in his sleeping
bag along with his (half only) blanket.

But with the exception of much grumbling over the clothing to be left
behind, there was no need of orders to enforce among the crew at least
the abandonment of other weights; all the grumbling there was over what
the captain ordered taken. Improvident as ever, the seamen growled over
dragging so much pemmican, growled over dragging lime-juice, growled
most of all over dragging the books and records of the expedition.
But they didn’t growl in the captain’s presence. In range now of the
steely glitter of those hard blue eyes, strangely new to them, they
only jumped to obey. Still, among themselves (and I was always with
them now) there was a continual growl over the loads building up on the
sledges, and as for what articles they were themselves to carry, I saw
seamen weighing sheath knife against jack-knife to determine which was
lighter, and then tossing the heavier one away.

The start of our life on the ice the night we lost our ship was
inauspicious. Dead tired from superhuman laboring, first in hurriedly
getting stores off the ship and then in dragging them over the ice to
what looked like a safe floe two hundred yards away from her, we turned
in at midnight, camping in five small tents, five or six men and an
officer in each, stretched out in a row on a common rubber mackintosh.
At one a.m., with a loud bang the floe beneath us split, the crack
running right through De Long’s tent, and the ice promptly opened up.
Had it not been for the weight of the sleepers on the ends of the
mackintosh there, the men sleeping in the middle would immediately
have been dumped down the crevice into the sea! Even so, practically
helpless in their sleeping bags, they were rescued with difficulty,
while all the rest of us, weary as we were, hastily turned out to move
our whole camp across the widening crack to another floe. By two a.m.,
this was done, and again we turned in, leaving only Kuehne on watch.
At four a.m., as he was calling Bartlett, his relief, from my tent, he
announced suddenly,

“Turn out if you want to see the last of the _Jeannette_! There she
goes, there she goes!”

I leaped up and out of the tent. There was the listed _Jeannette_
coming slowly upright over the pack, for all the world like a ghost
rising from a snowy tomb. The floes holding the ship, as if satisfied
at having fully crushed the life from her, were evidently backing away.
She came erect, her spars rattling and creaking dismally as she rose,
then the ice opening further, she started to sink with accelerating
speed. Quickly the black hull disappeared, then her yards banged down
on the ice, stripped from the masts, and in another instant, over the
fore-topmast, the last bit of her I ever saw, the dark waters closed
and the sturdy _Jeannette_ had sunk, gone to an ocean grave beneath the
Arctic floes!

I stood a moment in the cold air (the temperature had dropped to 10°
F.) with bared head, a silent mourner but thankful that we had not gone
with her, then crawled sadly back to my sleeping bag.

On the sixth day after the crushing of the ship, our goods were
sorted, our sledges all packed, and we were ready to go southward.
Eight sledges, heavily loaded with our three boats and our provisions,
carried about a ton each; a ninth sledge, more lightly loaded carrying
our lime-juice, our whiskey, and our medical stores, was considered
the hospital sledge; while a tenth, carrying only a small dinghy for
temporary work in ferrying over leads, completed our cavalcade.

To minimize the glare of the ice and the strain of working under a
brilliant (but not a hot sun) all our traveling was to be done at night
when the midnight sun was low in the heavens, with our camping and
sleeping during the day when the sun being higher, his more direct rays
might be better counted on to dry out our soaked clothing.

At 6 P.M. on June 17th, we started, course due south.

Our first day’s journey was a heart-wrenching nightmare which no man
there was like to forget till his dying gasp. The dogs were unable to
drag even their one sledge; it took six men in addition to keep it
moving. And so bad was the snow through which the sledges sank and
floundered, that we found it took our entire force heaving together
against their canvas harnesses to advance the boats and their sledges
one at a time against the snow banking up under the bows of the clumsy
boats.

Dunbar had gone ahead, planting four black flags at intervals to mark
the path which he as pilot had selected for us to follow, the fourth
and last flag, only a mile and a half along from the start, being the
end of our first night’s journey. But so terrible was the going that by
morning only one boat, the first cutter, had reached that last flag;
the runners had collapsed under three of the sledges, stalling them;
a wide lead had unexpectedly opened up in a floe halfway down our
road, blocking the other sledges and requiring them to be unloaded and
ferried over it; Chipp (who, with Alexey and Kuehne, in spite of being
the sick were dragging the hospital sledge) had fainted dead away in
the snow; Lauterbach and Lee had both collapsed in their harnesses,
Lauterbach with cramps in his stomach, Lee with cramps in his legs; and
by 6 A.M., when our night’s journey should have been finished and all
hands at the last flag pitching camp, we had instead broken down and
blocked sledges scattered over that mile and a half of pack ice from
one end to the other!

It was sickening. Twelve hours of man-killing effort and we had made
good over the ice not even one and a half miles!

Willy-nilly, we made camp, breakfasted, and turned in at 8 A.M., for
our exhausted men could do no more without a rest. But for Surgeon
Ambler, there was no rest. While the remainder of us, dead to the
world, slumbered that day, Ambler, who as much as anyone the night
before had toiled with the sledges along that heartbreaking road,
labored over the sick, struggling to get them on their feet again for
what faced them that evening.

That night we turned to once more, repairing runners, shifting loads,
digging sledges out of snowbanks in which they were buried, and
fighting desperately to advance all to the first camp. Regardless of a
temperature of 20° F., we perspired as if in the tropics, and tossing
aside our parkas, worked in our undershirts in the snow. All that
night and the next night also, we labored thus. By the second morning
following, thank God, we had all our boats and sledges together there,
and tumbled again into our sleeping bags, wearied mortals if ever there
were such on this earth! Three nights of hell to make a mile and a half
of progress! It was worse even than my journey to Henrietta Island had
led me to believe could be possible.

And then that day, of all things in the Arctic, it started to _rain_!
Miserable completely, we sat or lay in our leaking tents, soaked,
muscle-weary, and frozen, while the cold rain trickled over us and over
the icy floors of our tents. But while I had thought no creatures could
possibly be suffering greater misery than we, I changed my mind when
I saw our dogs, cowering in the rain, snuggle against our tent doors,
begging to be admitted to such poor shelter as we had. So soon, with
men and beasts shivering all together, the picture of our misery was
completed.

In the midst of all this, Starr opening up the rations for our midnight
dinner, found in a coffee can a note addressed to the captain, which he
brought to him. It read:

 “This is to express my best wishes for success in your great
 undertaking. Hope when you peruse these lines you will be thinking of
 the comfortable homes you left behind you for the purpose of aiding
 science. If you can make it convenient drop me a line. My address,

  G. J. K—,
  Box 10, New York City.”

“_Apropos_, eh, Melville? I guess we’re thinking of those homes, all
right,” commented De Long bitterly, showing me the note. “Where’s the
nearest post-box so I can drop that imbecile a line?” Nearby was a
crack in the floe. “Ah, right here.” De Long scribbled his initials on
the note, drew an arrow pointing to the writer’s address, and dropped
it into the crack. “Now we’ll see how good the seagoing Arctic mail
service is. At that, it may get to New York before we do,” added the
captain grimly.

Before we moved off from this camp, the captain decided to check the
loads to make sure we were taking nothing more than was absolutely
necessary. The first thing he discovered was that flouting his order
about clothing, Collins had smuggled into our baggage and was taking
along an extra fur coat. Immediately, under the captain’s angry eye,
it went flying out on the ice. And the next thing he found was that in
their knapsacks (which were towed along stowed inside the whaleboat)
the seamen almost without exception were taking some small mementoes of
the cruise, trifling in weight in themselves, in the aggregate under
our circumstances, a considerable burden. They went sliding out on the
ice alongside Collins’ coat.

And then having cleaned house, the captain waited for the rain to end.

Since it rained all night, we stayed in camp, getting a rest if such it
can be called. Next night we were underway again on a new schedule, the
load of supplies on each sledge now cut in half (except of course for
the boat sledges) the idea being to lighten up our overloaded sledges
so we could move them to the designated point more easily and with less
danger of breaking runners, then unload and send them back empty for
the other half of their cargoes. Working this way we started out, only
to find half a mile along a crack in the ice, not wide enough for a
ferry, too wide to jump with the sledges. Here the ice broke up with
some of our sledges floating off on an island, stopping all progress
till we had lassoed some smaller cakes for ferries and on these we rode
over our remaining loads, finishing our night’s work with hardly half a
mile gained and everyone knocked out again.

So for the next four days we struggled along, sometimes making a mile
a day; once, by great good luck, a mile and a quarter. The going got
worse. Pools of water from the late rain gathered beneath the crusts
of snow and thin refrozen ice. As we came along, the surfaces broke
beneath us, leaving us to flounder to our knees through slush and ice
water. More sledge runners broke; Nindemann and Sweetman were kept
busy at all hours repairing them. Chipp got worse, Alexey vomited at
the slightest provocation, Lauterbach looked ready to die, and Lee
staggered along on his weakened legs as if they were about to part
company at his damaged hips. Danenhower, of all those sick, while he
could hardly see, at least had some strength, and was added to the
hospital sled to help pull it under Chipp’s pilotage. Ahead Dunbar
scouted and marked out our road south by compass, then with a pick-ax
endeavored to clear interfering hummocks from that path, aided a little
in that by Newcomb. I bossed the sledge gangs and kept them moving,
putting my shoulders beneath a boat or a sledge when necessary to get
it started. Ambler when not tending his patients, armed with another
pick-ax helped Dunbar clear the chosen road. And bringing up the
rear was De Long, supervising the loading, checking food issues, and
relentlessly driving us all along.

On June 25, we had been underway eight days since starting south. By
such grueling labor over that pack as men cannot ordinarily be driven
to, even to save their own lives, and which in this case only the
overpowering will of De Long rendered possible, we had made good to the
southward by my most liberal calculation a total distance over the ice
of five and one-half miles. I contemplated the result with a leaden
heart. Even should the ice extend southward only one hundred miles
out of the five hundred we had to cover (which seemed far too good to
be true), at that rate of advance it would take us one hundred and
fifty days to cross to open water. Long before that, unless we died of
exhaustion first as now looked very probable, our sixty days’ rations
would have been consumed and we should be left to perish of starvation
midway of the pack.

In despair, I gazed at our three cumbersome boats, overhanging at
both ends their heavy sledges, the last of which after soul-wrenching
efforts my party had just dragged over rough hummocks into camp. Around
it the men, too exhausted even to go to their tents, were leaning their
weary bodies for a moment’s rest before they undertook the labor of
lifting again their aching and frozen feet. Those massive boats, like
millstones round our necks, were what were killing our chances. With
our food alone, divided into reasonable sledge loads, we might make
speed enough to escape, but with those boats—! Incapable of division,
the smallest over a ton in weight, the largest over a ton and a half,
dragging those boats was like dragging huge anchors over the floes. If
only we could abandon them! But with a sigh, I gave up that dream. With
an open sea somewhere ahead, the boats were as necessary to us as the
pemmican. But only five and a half miles made good in our first week
when we were strongest! It looked hopeless. We could only labor onward
and pray for a miracle. I quit thinking and turned toward my tent, my
supper, and my sleeping bag.

On the way, I bumped into Mr. Dunbar, just returning from a preliminary
scouting trip over our next night’s route. Dunbar, hardly fifty, hale
and hearty, a fine example of a seasoned Yankee skipper when first he
joined us, now with his face wrinkled and worn, looked like a wizened
old man staggering under a burden of eighty years at least, and ready
to drop in his tracks at the slightest provocation.

“Well, captain,” I sang out jocularly to cheer him up a bit, “what’s
the good word from the front? Sighted that open water we’re looking
for yet?”

The whaler looked at me with dulled eyes, then to my astonishment broke
down and sobbed on my shoulder like a baby. I put a fur-clad arm gently
round his heaving waist to comfort him.

“What is it, old shipmate? Can’t you stand my jokes either?”

“Chief,” he sobbed, “ye know it ain’t that; I like everything about ye.
But that ice ahead of us! It’s terrifically wild and broken, and so
chock-full o’ holes, chief, I could hardly crawl across! We’ll never
get our sledges over it!” The weeping old seaman sagged down in my
arms, his gray head nestling in my beard.

“Don’t be so sure, mate,” I said with a cheeriness I didn’t feel. “My
lads are getting so expert heaving sledges over hummocks, I’m thinking
of putting ’em on as a flying trapeze act in Barnum’s Circus when we
get back, and making us all as rich as Commodore Vanderbilt in one
season! Come on, captain, forget it; let’s have a cup of coffee to
warm us up—no, let’s belay the coffee. Come to think of it, I guess I
still got drag enough with Dr. Ambler to work him for a shot of whiskey
apiece for a couple of good old salts like us.” And I led him away
to the hospital tent, where Ambler, after one look at Dunbar, hardly
needed the wink from me to produce without a word his medical whiskey.

Leaving Dunbar with the doctor after swallowing a drink myself, I
started again for my own tent, but once more I was stopped, by the
captain this time, who beckoned me to join him in the snow alongside
the deserted whaleboat. All hands were in their tents by now, working
on their cold pemmican.

“What have you made our mileage to the south so far, chief?” opened the
skipper listlessly.

“Being generous, about five and a half miles, sir.” I looked at him
puzzled. The captain knew our progress, logged daily in his journal,
even better than I. Surely he wasn’t keeping me from my supper just for
that.

De Long nodded, continued,

“That’s right, over the ice of course. Melville, I’m sorry to say that
today I got some good sights of the sun for the first time since we
started. Chief,” and his voice broke as he looked at me, “the northwest
drift has got us! We’re twenty-five miles further _north_ tonight than
the day we started!”




CHAPTER XXVIII


Twenty-five miles further north than when we started! Coming on top
of all else, that was a knockout blow. With sagging knees, I leaned
against the gunwale of the whaleboat, looked at the haggard captain,
asked faintly,

“Sure?”

“Yes,” he replied mournfully, “sure. Two meridian altitudes of the sun
and a couple of Sumner lines and they all check. I couldn’t believe the
first sight myself; I thought my sextant was bad. But after checking
that with nothing wrong, I spent all day getting check sights; you saw
me shooting some of them. No question about it now. But, for God’s
sake, don’t tell anyone! Not even another officer. If the men knew, I
couldn’t get ’em to lay a hand on another sledge. They’d just sit down
here and wait to die!”

I nodded at that. Who could blame them? Caught on a treadmill, why
should they torture themselves with such labor as slaves would lie down
under and suffer themselves to be lashed to death rather than rise and
endure, when the only result was that they were being carried backward
five times as fast as their puny efforts pushed them forward? If the
men learned the results of those disastrous sights, we were finished!
But weren’t we finished anyway, whether they knew it or not?

“That’s bad, captain,” I mumbled, my brain numbed at the news. “What
can we do now?”

“I haven’t figured it out fully yet, chief; I want your advice on what
I have in mind. That’s the only reason I told you; that, and maybe the
thought that at least one other officer ought to know where we are and
where we’re going in case something happens to me. Since Chipp and
Danenhower, both my deck officers, are knocked out, you’re the only
officer left I can talk to. But this mustn’t get out! It’d kill Chipp,
who’s in a bad way anyhow, like hitting him with an ax. And what it’d
do to the men, you can guess!” He finished with a ghastly smile.

Vaguely I felt that that might be a mercy to Chipp; indeed it might
well be a mercy to all of us should a kindly Providence then and there
somehow brain us all with an ax and end our sufferings. But of that I
said nothing. The captain had hinted at something further to be done.
What, I wondered, was it? Abandon the boats, speed up our progress,
trusting to luck the ice held out under us till we got to the New
Siberian Islands, there to live (or starve rather) on moss and Arctic
willow till perhaps some year a chance party of ivory hunters landed
and rescued us? A thin chance, that! I looked curiously at De Long.

“Well, skipper, no thanks for telling me. I could’ve got more work out
of my gang if I were still in blissful ignorance like the others than I
can now, but I’ll keep on doing my best. And if my advice is any good,
you’re welcome to it. What’s your idea?”

“I know that well enough, chief. I would gladly have suffered under
that knowledge alone, but the safety of the whole party requires
someone else to know, and unfortunately to suffer with me. But no
use talking about that now. Let’s get along with what’s next.” He
jerked out from beneath his parka a chart, unfolded it, spread it on
the midship thwart of the whaleboat. On it, marked by a bold cross
enclosed in a red ink circle, was a spot in latitude 77° 18′ N. where
the _Jeannette_ had sunk, a spot unfortunately for us now, far to the
southeast of the small penciled cross in latitude 77° 43′ N. which
marked our present position as shown by the captain’s latest sights.

“There’s just one possible thing we can do, Melville; change the course
from due south as we’re heading now, to southwest. The ice is drifting
clearly enough northwest. It’s like crossing a river current; no use
bucking into it as we’re doing now going south, even if land is closest
that way. The only hope is to cut across perpendicular to the current
and ultimately you get to the other bank, even though the current
carries you downstream meanwhile. The same with us, we’ve got to cut
directly across the drift, that is, southwest; and some day, regardless
of how far north we’re carried, we’ll come to the edge of this pack and
can launch our boats—provided we live long enough! And to insure that,
we’re going to go on shorter rations now to stretch out our food,” he
concluded significantly. “I’ve decided all that already, Melville. All
I want to know from you—you’re working the men—is how thin I can cut it
and still let you keep on driving them, harder even than now!”

I thought a moment. Our daily rations, pemmican, hard bread, and
coffee, were none too generous in quantity as it was for the terrific
physical effort the men were laboring under. But who knows what men can
stand? I was learning all the time.

“Well, skipper, cut a third off. That’ll stretch it out for ninety
days instead of sixty. I doubt that we can keep up long on such short
rations, but maybe we can knock over a few seals to help out now and
then. Anyhow, I’m willing to try.

“Good!” agreed De Long. “_Nil desperandum!_ I knew I could count fully
on you, chief; I always can. We’ll start that program, new course and
all, tonight.” He started to fold up the chart again, when his eye
fell on the penciled cross marking our position. “77° 43′ North,” he
muttered. “Farthest North for us yet. And forever too, on this cruise
anyway, I hope. Say, Melville, you remember that silk banner you used
in claiming Henrietta Island? Well, it’s in the first cutter, alongside
the whaleboat here. There’s something else about that flag my wife
made for me. She wanted me to fly it in celebration when we made our
‘Farthest North.’ Let’s hope we’re celebrating that glad event right
here and now. But the crew knows about that too, I think. If I fly
_that_ flag over this camp, they’ll smell a rat right off.” He looked
furtively round. All our men were apparently still in the tents. No one
was in sight. “I think I can take a chance to please Mrs. De Long on
this; it’s little enough I’ve done for her since she married a sailor.
Here, Melville, lend a hand.”

Together we drew from its case and unwrapped that silken banner, a
moderately large American ensign beautifully embroidered round the
edges by Emma De Long’s loving hands for her husband’s ship. And
stealthily, keeping it below the gunwales of the first cutter lest
someone looking from a tent should see and wonder, we fully extended
it horizontally. Then standing on the ice alongside that open boat,
with De Long to starboard and me to port, we two, looking certain death
on the pack in the face, waved that banner beneath the Arctic sky in
latitude 77° 43′ from the Equator—Farthest North for George Washington
De Long, if not for the _Jeannette_!

And then, leaning over the gunwale, De Long buried his weather-beaten
face in the rustling silk folds of his wife’s flag, kissing it
fervently, while I, clinging to the other side, closed my wet eyes in
silence. Well did I remember that June day in 1879, almost exactly two
years before in San Francisco, when at our commissioning Emma De Long,
a lovely figure, had herself proudly manned the halliards and hoisted
that banner to the masthead on the _Jeannette_! But the _Jeannette_ was
gone beneath the floes, and far away at that moment, I envisioned Emma
De Long, a different woman now, worn by two years of hourly dread over
news that never came, praying for the safety of the man before me, who
with heaving shoulders was caressing his country’s flag, the solitary
symbol of his wife’s love still left in his possession.

De Long straightened up.

“All right, Melville. I think my wife’ll be glad to know when it gets
back we flew her flag at our Farthest North. Come on, let’s fold it up;
carefully now, so nobody’ll know we had it out and perhaps guess why.”

Silently I obeyed. We rolled up the flag, slid it into its oilskin
case, carefully restowed the case as before. The chances of our ever
getting back were slight now, but as I shoved that case under the
thwarts in the cutter, bachelor as I was, I hoped that even though our
own bodies might soon be stretched in death over that desolate ice
pack, somehow that flag in the boat might survive the drift, some day
to be picked up and returned to the one person who would sense among
its silken folds the message that it bore.




CHAPTER XXIX


When we got underway that night on June 25th, we headed southwest
instead of south. Burning in my breast were De Long’s words _Nil
desperandum!_ and my faith in him from his faith in me, rose. The ice
to the southwest, thank God, Dunbar reported as not so bad as he had
found it to the south, though Heaven knows how that could have been for
we had to bridge and ferry five times in one mile, and in many places
to get our sledges over inescapable hummocks blocking our path, we had
to build inclined planes of snow to their crests and other inclines
down the lee slopes, then heave our sledges up one slope like Egyptian
slaves building the Pyramids, and brace ourselves back to ease them
down the other side. We couldn’t even coast down the lee slopes, for
then the sledges buried their noses so deeply in the banks at the
bottom that extricating them was horrible work.

So like horses (though sometimes seahorses as we plowed through water
to our waists) we worked along through the ensuing week, making about
a mile and a half a day over the ice. We were all in a bad way from
exhaustion, and oddly enough the brilliant sun, cold though it was
around 28° F., burned and blistered our faces and added to our general
suffering. On top of that a mental trouble became noticeable; the men
were grumbling because no news of our position or of our progress had
been posted, for they had all seen the captain taking sights and felt
that the results ought to be made known. As the week drew along and
nothing was said, they began to get suspicious, but none dared ask
the captain; when they questioned me, I merely shrugged my shoulders,
saying,

“Don’t ask me, boys. I’m only an engineer! Why should I bother with the
navigation?”

As for the growling which was plentiful over the shortened rations, I
could point out that our progress was slower than originally expected
so we must naturally stint ourselves to stretch them out longer, and
thus allayed any suspicion on that score.

But De Long had a busy time dodging his other officers, lest they
ask embarrassing questions. With Chipp and Danenhower this was not
difficult, for Chipp could hardly walk and Danenhower could hardly see.
Keeping away from them was easy. Ducking Dunbar was much harder, but
since the ice-pilot was ahead laying out the road most of the night,
the skipper with some finesse managed to steer the discussions into
safer channels on the few occasions when he couldn’t avoid him. Ambler,
however, turned out to be a Tartar who from the very nature of his
duties the captain couldn’t keep away from. Finally, concluding that
with Ambler confidence was better than suspicion, he acquainted him
also with the reasons for our sudden change of course, and I must say
for the doctor that I think he took it better than I did, for early
in the week when he was told, he was more than having his hands full
between swinging a pick-ax on the roads and tending his patients,
especially Chipp.

Lieutenant Chipp, carried from his sick bed when the ship sank, was in
a bad way from exposure and sleeping on the ice, despite the fact that
he was the only person allowed to take an extra coat. Even the week’s
rest before we started sledging south helped him little and he fainted
in his harness the first day out. After that, though hauling no longer
on the hospital sledge, he had since barely managed to stagger along
with it as it went.

The day we started southwest, so badly off was Chipp that slow as we
went that day, he could not hobble well enough to keep his emaciated
and pain-racked body up with the hospital sledge and was delaying even
its snail-like progress. De Long, bringing up the rear guard, ordered
him to climb aboard the sledge and ride. Chipp made no move to get
aboard, but instead staggered onward. Without a word, De Long picked
him off the ice, laid him gently on his back on the sledge, and ordered
briefly,

“You stay there, Chipp, or I’ll hand you a courtmartial for
insubordination! You’re delaying our progress when you walk!”

Poor Chipp, broken-hearted at being made a burden for his overladen
shipmates to drag, tried to roll off the sledge to the snow, but so
weak was he that he could do no more than turn on his face when he
stuck, clawing feebly, trying to pull himself off the sledge. Failing
even in that, he looked pitifully up at De Long by his side.

“Don’t make them drag me, captain, please! I’m all gone anyway. Take me
off!” he begged. “You’d better leave me behind right here!”

“Shut up, Chipp,” ordered De Long abruptly. “You’ll do what I say like
everybody else in this outfit! Quit worrying; you’re going to get
better. But better or worse, nobody gets left behind while there’s a
man alive able to drag him along!”

He motioned to Lauterbach, Alexey, and Danenhower, dragging the sledge.

“Get underway now, men. I’ll help you till I can send someone else.”
And with the captain pushing and the others pulling, the sledge started
again with the enfeebled Chipp face down on the load, scarcely able to
cling to the lashings, weeping bitterly.

We got along. But I might here mention that for every mile of progress
over the ice that we made, we had to walk thirteen miles! To advance
a boat sledge took the whole working party together; to advance a
provision sledge half loaded took half the party, so to get our three
boats and four provision sledges (the dogs handled the other one) along
one mile meant that seven times under load and six times empty-handed,
thirteen times in all, the staggering working party had to traverse
that mile of ice. If the edge of the pack should by God’s grace turn
out to be no further than a hundred miles from our starting point,
still when we reached it we should have tramped thirteen hundred miles
over that terrible ice, seven hundred of those miles dragging inhuman
loads! If it were twice as far—God help us then!

So we went along, over what Jack Cole, ruefully tugging in the lead
harness, called,

“’Tis the rocky road to Dublin, me byes. Yo heave! Shure an’ we should
be nearly there by mornin’!” But I knew it would be many a morning
yet, if ever, ere Jack raised Dublin or anything like it over that ice
horizon.

July 3rd arrived with good enough weather for the captain to get
another set of observations of the sun, which on working out, he
communicated to me. The new position was in latitude 77° 31′ N.,
longitude 150° 41′ E., which was to some degree gratifying, for while
it was still thirteen miles north of where we left the _Jeannette_,
it was thirteen miles generally southwest of where we were on June
25th, and checked very well with both the course we had been steering
and our distance logged over the ice since then, twelve miles. This
was cheering, for it seemed to indicate no ice drift at all for the
last eight days, and things began to look up. Only thirteen miles more
and we would be as far south as when we started sixteen days before!
Naturally, while all this cheered De Long, Ambler and myself, the
knowledge would have cheered nobody else, so no notice of it was posted
and no mention made.

July 4th we celebrated on the ice, without any fireworks or speeches,
simply breaking out our small boat flags (the woolen ones only) and,
so to speak, dressing ship. De Long was excessively blue all day, for
it was the third anniversary of the day in Le Havre, France, when Miss
Bennett had christened his ship with her name, _Jeannette_, and he had
listened to many glowing speeches of what was expected of her. Looking
at the three small boats which were all that was left of his command
made De Long decidedly sick. Had there been only the safety of himself
to consider the day his ship went down, I am sure De Long would have
gone down with her.

By way of a feast in honor of the day we had our usual short allowance
of cold pemmican which we ate thankfully. I may say here that pemmican
(which is a mixture made of beef pounded more or less to a powder,
mixed with raisins, and then the whole stirred up in boiling fat which
when cold is packed in cans) while a highly nutritious and palatable
food served in cold slices which we ate like cake, as a steady diet
gets infernally tiresome. Alexey on this day, with a naive faith in the
white man’s powers, feeling that a holiday called for something better,
in all seriousness told the doctor that he would take mutton instead!

At this, Lee, my machinist, who was also in the doctor’s tent, very
gravely informed the doctor of the best way to make Rhode Island
clam chowder, which he felt was the only proper dish for any July
4th banquet, and the poor doctor, with all this gastronomical advice
bringing back recollections of past Independence Day feasts back in old
Virginia garnished with everything from savory baked hams to candied
sweet potatoes, found his mouth watering so that he lost all interest
in his cold pemmican and fled from the tent.

Underway again that evening, we stumbled along as before, heaving,
holding back, building ice bridges, ferrying on bobbing floes across
the water leads when we did not fall into them. De Long, his mind a
little relieved about the drift, spent fewer hours in the rear and
most of the night tramping over our route, for the first time beginning
to take some notice of individuals and what they were doing. Coming up
to one bridging job, where I had a piece of floating ice jammed into
a crack some fifteen feet wide while the crew were dragging sledges
across it to the southern side, he noticed that Collins, standing at
the edge of the gap, was holding the line securing the makeshift bridge
in place.

“Mr. Collins,” said the captain icily, “you have many times in
disrespectful language informed me that you didn’t ship to be treated
as a seaman. I can’t allow you to go home, claiming that I forced you
to work as one even to save your own life. Give that rope to one of the
men!”

Collins made no move to obey. Instead for perhaps half a minute he
stood glaring like a tiger at De Long, till the latter, noting Seaman
Dressler close alongside, sternly ordered,

“Mr. Collins, give that rope to Dressler, and don’t let me catch you
putting your hand to another line until I order you! You are still
under suspension awaiting trial and don’t you forget it!”

Collins, ready to burst with anger, slowly passed over the line and
without a word dropped to the rear.

We moved along. Under the continued burning rays of the sun, the snow
melted and drained away from the surface, making the going a little
easier, and our consumption of food lightened up our loads, still
further aiding our speed, but our personnel troubles increased.

Ambler was particularly burdened. Ten days of riding on the sledge and
careful medical attention had so built up Chipp that he could walk
again, and with that little improvement, he began to nag the doctor to
put him off the sicklist and restore him to duty in command of one of
the parties. Danenhower also, his physique improved by the enforced
exercise he was getting in walking after his long confinement aboard
ship, began to make the same demand, though he could hardly see through
his one heavily shielded eye. Ambler naturally enough refused both
requests. As a result, daily when he came into his tent after having
wielded a pick-ax all night long on the roads, and crawled horribly
tired into his sleeping bag to rest, it was only to listen to his
two blessed invalids exchanging sneering remarks about his medical
competence because he would not restore them to duty. Finally, unable
to stand it further, he burst out,

“For God’s sake, shut up, both of you! Dan, if you’d obeyed my orders
on the ship, one of your eyes would be well now! And you, Chipp, a
little while ago were begging us to leave you on the ice to die! Now
that you’re both barely able to get yourselves along, you want _me_
to risk other men’s lives by putting them in your charge, and I’ll be
damned if I will! Was ever a doctor cursed by two such patients!”

But if his patients aggravated him, his helpers on the road work tried
his very soul. In charge of the road-building gang, Ambler had as
assistant laborers Lee and Newcomb, and to draw along the sledge with
the dinghy which was assigned to him for working in the open leads,
seven of such miserable, broken-down dogs that they were worthless
for any work on the heavy sledges and only an irritation on his
lighter one. But even so, Ambler might philosophically have accepted
the situation and kept on as he was, doing most of the work with a
pick-ax himself, had it not been for Newcomb. For both the broken-down
dogs and Lee with his shaky legs were at least doing their poor best.
Quite to the contrary, our naturalist, though fully recovered from
his indisposition, infuriated the doctor, himself manfully swinging a
pick, by the piddling efforts which he was pleased to pass off as work.
Patiently Ambler showed him how to swing a pick on the hummocks; then
getting no results from him, sharply ordered him to turn to, only to
find Newcomb more interested in pertly answering back than in obeying.
For two days Ambler, with his southern temper slowly rising, stood it,
merely remarking grimly to me one night,

“If that Yankee chatterbox doesn’t soon do some work instead of
answering me back every time I speak to him, he’s going to get some
medical attention that’ll astonish him!” I watched them working a
little ahead of me that night as I trod back and forth with the
sledges. We had only two pick-axes in our whole outfit. Newcomb, at
the base of a steep hummock, was using one ax in a pretense of picking
at it, while I could see Ambler, standing on its slippery crest,
nervously tightening his calloused hands about our other pick-ax handle
as if debating whether to swing then on Newcomb’s head or wait till
he was a little surer of his footing. While the doctor was in this
uncertain frame of mind, Newcomb below him quit picking at the ice
altogether, lashed a line to his pick-ax to make it serve as an anchor
for something or other, and then, sad to relate, overboard into an open
water lead went the precious pick-ax, line and all, a total loss!

In spite of the real tragedy which the loss of that pick-ax meant to
us, what happened next made me roar. Ambler’s fingers closed firmly on
the handle of our sole remaining ax, apparently determined, poor as his
shot now was, to swing and make an end of the gadfly below him; then
changing his mind, he leaped from the hummock, stopped only a second to
wave the pick in Newcomb’s face while he bellowed,

“You bird-stuffing idiot! If I weren’t afraid of breaking our last ax
on your worthless skull, I’d kill you with it!” and dropping the pick
on the floe, he ran off to find the captain.

A few minutes later he was back, all smiles, to find Newcomb, instead
of manning the last ax, casually scanning the sky for something really
important—gulls perhaps.

“It’s all fixed now, Mr. Newcomb,” said Ambler cheerfully. “I offered
the captain to trade you for another worthless cur for my sledge, but
he couldn’t find one poor enough to make it a fair exchange, so bless
his heart, he gave me Seaman Johnson for my road gang and said I could
do what I pleased about you. So now you’re fired! Get out of here!”

Newcomb, pert as ever, enquired,

“Discharged, I presume you mean me to infer? How welcome! What am I to
do now?”

“Tie your shotgun round your neck for ballast and jump after that
pick-ax, if you want to do me a favor!” advised the doctor, fingering
the last pick significantly. “Now get out of my way while I work, or
there may yet happen what will go down in the log as a most regrettable
accident!”




CHAPTER XXX


De Long was left with the problem of how to make Collins and Newcomb
useful members of our primitive community. While Collins, before the
captain noticed him, had done useful work when it suited him to help,
I have little doubt that it was only for the Machiavellian purpose of
building up a brutal mistreatment case against the captain. Had he been
ordered to work steadily in harness like the others, he would either
have flatly balked or else have done it only as a martyr, neither of
which situations the captain was prepared to cope with. Newcomb’s case
was a little different. Had he been my problem, I am confident that the
toe of my boot, properly applied a few times, would have startlingly
changed his outlook both on work and on keeping his mouth shut when
spoken to, but De Long was constitutionally opposed to physical
persuasion. Casting his eye about the floes, the skipper observed that
seals were again occasionally in evidence, and decided that since both
our Indians, Alexey and Aneguin, were laboring like all the others as
pack-horses, he might well substitute Collins and Newcomb for them
as hunters. Hunting being in all civilized circles a gentleman’s
privilege, neither of these pseudo-seamen officers could well maintain
that it was beneath the stations for which they had shipped, and if
they shot anything, it would be of real value in stretching out our
precious food supply, let alone giving us a change from the pemmican
which constituted the fish, flesh, fowl and vegetable of our unvaried
menu.

So promptly providing Collins with a rifle and Newcomb with the shotgun
which he had carried from the wreck, both were turned to on the
floes to see what they could do in earning their passage while our
straggling line of boats and sledges moved on over the pack.

But even so Collins was not satisfied. A member of the party messing
and sleeping in the captain’s tent, his main business in life seemed
to be sizing up what he could find wrong with De Long’s management
of the retreat, to add in his private notes to whatever else he had
accumulated in the way of (in his eyes) errors in the captain’s
judgment. But he must have had a tough time of it, for the only
thing that apparently displeased him now was as he related it to his
_confidant_, Bartlett,

“The skipper’s always too infernally polite to me, seeing that I’m
served before he helps himself to pemmican, and making sure my place in
the tent’s all right before he’ll crawl into his sleeping bag.”

And under these embarrassing conditions, Collins began his life as a
hunter.

July 10th, far to the southwest, Dunbar sighted a faint cloud which he
announced as land, gravely assuring us that the New Siberian Islands
were in sight. While the skipper was dubious of its being land at
all, knowing (what Dunbar and most of the party did not) that the
nearest charted land, those New Siberian Islands, were still a hundred
and twenty miles off, so that what was seen was either a mirage or a
new discovery, the effect on our progress was magical—over none too
good ice we made three and a quarter miles that day! In the clearer
atmosphere, the skipper got some sights for the first time in a week
which when worked out placed us in latitude 77° 8′ N., longitude 151°
38′ E., to our joy showing that at last we were south of 77° 18′
N. from which we had started. But both the skipper and I stared in
amazement at our new position, for having by dead reckoning and compass
made sixteen miles to the south_west_ over the pack during the week,
the sights showed that our actual change of position in those seven
days was twenty-seven miles to the south_east_. So once again the
current had us, carrying us where it would, but since this time it was
increasing our southing, we could only be thoroughly grateful.

That night when (still keeping our actual position a secret) it was
announced that not only were we doing well over the ice, but that a
southerly drift was helping us along, there was a roaring cheer as the
straining men in harness leaned forward, and we got the boats away in
grand style.

For two weeks we struggled on to the southwest, sometimes certain
we saw land, sometimes certain we didn’t. But it was discouraging
work. Fog, snow, and hail made our lives miserable, and between the
everlasting ferrying over open leads and the plowing through pools
of surface slush, we kept our clothes continuously soaked in ice
water. Aside from the discomfort of stretching out in wet clothes to
sleep in a wet bag on a rubber sheet sunk in a puddle on wet ice, the
interminable wetness began to finish our moccasin and boot-soles,
and now there wasn’t a tight pair left in the ship’s company. These
soles, made of “oog-joog” skin, a rawhide from a species of seal, were
fine when dry in ordinary snow or ice, but when wet, they softened to
resemble tripe and then under the strain of men heaving hard against
sharp ice with their feet to drag the sledges, they soon let go. As
long as the spare “oog-joog” brought from the _Jeannette_ held out, we
patched away till all hands stood on a mass of patches as they worked,
but when it gave out (and it very soon did), we were in a bad way for
substitutes. First we tried leather, stripping it from the oar-looms,
but leather was not only too hard and slippery for use on the ice but
our supply didn’t last long, and we were quickly reduced to canvas, to
sennet mats woven of hemp rope by the seamen, to rag mats, and even
to wooden soles carved from what little planking our carpenter could
strip out of the bottom boards in our boats. None were in any degree
satisfactory—one hard heave on sharp ice would often tear the soles
off a man’s boots—and frequently before the end of a night’s hauling
I would have half a dozen men straining at the sledges with their
bare feet on the ice, even their socks completely worn through, while
the rest of the gang, whose soles still clung on, would be spurting a
mixture of slush and water from their torn moccasins at each step.

Between the lodestone effect of the dim land ahead of us, less snow,
a little smoother ice, and lighter sledges, we speeded up. The ice
improved to the point where we could drag a boat with only half our
party, thus advancing two loads at once and having to tramp only seven
miles for each mile made, instead of thirteen as before. But the cracks
in the ice increased in frequency and ferrying and bridging over
them made our lives a nightmare, the mental strain of forever riding
heavy sledges over bobbing ice cakes which threatened to capsize each
instant, being indescribable. And to add to our worries, our dogs began
to get fits, four of our best ones spinning dizzily in their harnesses
before dropping on the ice, frothing at the mouth when we cut them out
of the traces.

One pleasing incident occurred amidst all our hardships. After ten days
of hunting, Collins finally shot a seal in an open lead, which prize
was handsomely recovered by Ambler and Johnson in the dinghy before
it sank. For this we were doubly thankful—after using his grease to
tighten up our leaking boots, we dined most luxuriously on stewed seal,
fried seal, and if only we had had an oven, we might have had roast
seal. But he went very well as it was; after a month on cold pemmican,
it was a feast long to be remembered!

July 16th we struck tough going. The ferrying grew worse than ever;
Erichsen crossing a lead capsized with his sledge and we lost three
hundred pounds of pemmican, a serious blow. A few minutes later,
trying to get to a high hummock to inspect the distant land now more
visible ahead. De Long tried to jump a wide lead, the ice broke under
him and he went in up to his neck. He might well have gone completely
and forever had not Dunbar, who was with him, at that point grabbed
him by what he thought was his fur hood but which was actually his
whiskers, and nearly jerked the skipper’s head off pulling him out by
his mustaches!

Finally on this day, the doctor discharged Chipp from the sicklist,
though doubtful as to how long it might be before Chipp broke down
again. This resulted in a shuffle in commands—Chipp relieved me in
charge of the working force; I relieved Ambler in charge of the road
gang; and Ambler with only Danenhower left as a regular patient, was
detailed to work with Dunbar in scouting out the road. The doctor
offered to join the sledge gang in harness, but we were doing better
there, so the skipper refused. He preferred to use Ambler simply as
scout and medical officer, hoping that his terribly calloused, corned,
and chapped hands might recover enough for proper surgical work should
an accident make any necessary.

The skipper worked out some sights. The latitude, reliable, was 76°
41′ N.—28 miles gained to the south in six days—fine progress, much
more than we were logging over the ice. The longitude, doubtful, put
us at 153° 30′ E., indicating we were still going southeast though we
were heading southwest, but we were not greatly concerned over that.
Anything to the south was cause for gratitude.

We dragged along five days more. Newcomb at last shot something, a
gull he called a _mollemokki_, interesting ornithologically to him,
perhaps, worthless to us for food, certainly. The ice grew rotten; we
had more trouble with it. Our men, their eyes and minds affected by
the ice, easily deluded by mirages, were now seeing land in nearly
all directions, south of us, west of us, and even _north_ of us! And
not a day went by when someone didn’t see open water ahead of us,
fine wide-open sea in which we could launch our boats, toss away our
sledges, and sail homeward in comfort!

Instead of that we soon bumped into the worst mess of ice we had yet
encountered, a jumble of small lumps and water, with numberless large
floes tipped on end vertically. With my road gang and our solitary
pick-ax, I started the herculean job of clearing away some of these
hummocks so we might proceed, and was busily at it when the doctor,
bless his soul, came in to report that by retracing our path northward
half a mile, we could then go due west till we got on the flank of
that broken ice, after which we might go southwest again. I snapped at
that; the job ahead of me was like tunneling through a mountain with a
toothpick. So back over our trail we went with our boats and sledges.

Getting across even that better path was a heartrending job, for the
rotten floes would hardly stick alongside each other, till finally
using all the lines we had, like Alpine climbers we lashed the floes
together while we crossed over, seriously hampered by a dense fog.
It was a long stretch. In the middle of it, we came to morning, our
usual time for piping down to camp and rest during the day, but the
captain, seriously alarmed at the prospect of that rotten and moving
ice disintegrating under us while we slept, belayed the usual camp. So
without rest and only a brief stop for supper, we kept on, till after
twenty-three hours of terrific labor we came in the late afternoon to a
solider floe and stopped at last to rest our weary bones.

The captain, feeling rightly enough that what we now most sorely needed
was sleep rather than cold supper, gave the order for all hands to turn
in. This the men in my tent thankfully did and were soon stretched out
in their sleeping bags, but in the next tent, assigned to Danenhower,
Newcomb, and five seamen, Newcomb immediately sounded off.

“This is a fine way,” he said sarcastically, “to treat men who have
been working so hard; ordering them to turn in without anything to eat!”

Lieutenant Danenhower peered in surprise through his dark glasses at
the naturalist who had done nothing all day but carry a small shotgun.

“Maybe it _is_ hard for the men who are working, Newcomb,” he said
quietly, “but for you and me who haven’t done a blessed thing, it
isn’t, and we shouldn’t be the first to complain now.”

Newcomb ran true to form. Instead of taking the hint thus delicately
conveyed, he retorted angrily,

“I wasn’t speaking to you; I was speaking to these men. I don’t count
myself in the same category with you. I’m a worker!”

Newcomb a worker! Danenhower could hardly believe his ears. But not
wishing to start a row before the men, and not wanting anyone, least of
all a man who passed as an officer with them, to encourage them in the
belief that they were ill-treated, he ordered curtly,

“Pipe down, Newcomb! That’s enough on that!”

But piping down was one thing not in Newcomb’s psychology. Answering
back suited him better.

“No, I won’t!” he piped up. “I don’t take orders from you. And now that
the crisis has come, I’m going to meet the issue! You’ve made yourself
disagreeable to me right along, but I’m an officer too, and it’s got to
stop!”

Had Dan been able to see in more than a vague blur, the issue would
undoubtedly have met Newcomb’s jaw then and there. As it was, without
further words, Dan stumbled from the tent to report the still spouting
naturalist to the captain for endeavoring to foment trouble in the crew.

In five minutes, Newcomb was placed under arrest to be taken home for
courtmartial on two charges:

 I. Using language tending to produce discontent among the men; and

 II. When remonstrated with by Lieutenant Danenhower, using insolent
 and insubordinate language.

There being little further De Long could then do, he deprived Newcomb
of his shotgun, ordered him to keep in the rear as we proceeded, and
sternly warned him meantime not to annoy anyone working.

So when late that night we got underway, we had two officers under
arrest—the surly Collins who seemed to spend much of his time
unburdening his wrongs in the ears of my fireman Bartlett, but in
between times making himself useful as a hunter, and Newcomb who was
thoroughly useless for anything.

The land which Dunbar weeks before had sighted across the ice,
undoubtedly a newly discovered island not on the charts, was now in
plain sight only a few miles off, bearing westward. Through bad gales
and over broken pack, with occasional floebergs suddenly shooting into
the air near us, we worked toward it. July 23rd, the captain’s sights
showed no change in our latitude since the 16th; in that time between
our own efforts and the erratic drift, we had been taken twenty-eight
miles due west and were now fairly close to our new island. We
struggled along toward it over badly moving ice, but at least this ice
was firm and many of the floes were large. Collins finally shot another
seal, but it sank before the dinghy could get to it, and we sadly saw
our visions of a second feast dissolve into cold water. Next morning
we pitched camp as usual, with the land tantalizing us not three miles
off but mostly hidden in fog. Soon after turning in, the man on watch
shouted,

“Bear!” and instantly out of their sleeping bags popped Alexey and
Aneguin, eager to get the first bear sighted since our ship sank. We
heard a couple of shots, and our mouths began to water. Um-m! Bear
steaks for dinner! But it was all wasted for soon the two Indians were
back, empty-handed and disgusted. The bear had been in such excellent
trim that they had had to fire at a thousand yards on a rapidly
reciprocating target as that bear humped himself over the ice, and they
had of course missed. However, it didn’t matter much, claimed Alexey,
as the bear was only a dirty brown one and not very big, a remark which
prompted the captain to ask innocently,

“Sour grapes, Alexey?” but Alexey only looked at him puzzled. Grapes,
sour or otherwise, never grew in his latitudes, so I’m afraid he missed
the point. Quieting our disappointed stomachs as best we could, once
more we turned in. But we got the bear. In the late afternoon, Seaman
Görtz, who had the watch the while the rest of us slept, spotted him
once again. This time Görtz kept his mouth shut while the bear advanced
to within five hundred yards of our camp, and then, unnoticed, our
lookout managed to crawl within a hundred yards of him to plant two
bullets in that bear where they did the most good!

Now that we had him, he turned out to be a very fine bear indeed, even
Alexey admitting that ungrudgingly, and soon the air over that floe was
filled with an appetizing aroma of sizzling bear steaks that fairly
intoxicated us. We envied no man on earth his evening meal that night
as, disdaining pemmican, we gorged ourselves on bear. But we needed it.
When we broke camp and started for the island ahead, we found ourselves
with nothing but moving ice over which to work our sledges.

For two days, mostly in fog, we fought our way toward that island, with
the floes breaking under us, sliding away from us, and the whole pack
alive around us. A gale blew up, and on the off side of the hummocks
about us, a bad surf broke and kept us drenched. Finally on the third
day, we found ourselves opposite the dimly visible western tip of the
island, with nothing but a forlorn chance left of ever making the solid
ground that so desperately we ached to rest ourselves on. With but a
few hundred yards remaining before the pack finally drifted us past it
forever, we sighted ahead a long floe of heavy blue ice extending in
toward the land, with only a few openings between the floe and ours.
We bridged the gaps, bounced our sledges and boats over, and made good
a mile and a half across that floe. There we found more broken ice and
water, which with difficulty we started to cross in the fog by passing
a line to a floe beyond and using a smaller cake as a ferryboat, when
suddenly the fog lifted and there over our heads, some 2500 feet high,
towered a huge cliff, and sweeping past it as in a millrace were the
floes on which we rode!

We finished our ferry, ending on a moderate-sized floe drifting
rapidly past the fixed ice piled up at the base of the cliff, with the
southwest cape, our last slim chance to make the land, not far off. For
over two weeks we had dragged and struggled toward that island; now in
despair we found ourselves being helplessly swept by it!

Our little floe, covered with sledges, men and dogs, whirled and eddied
in the race, spinning crazily, and threatening to break up any moment,
when we noted that if only it should make the next spin in the right
direction, it might touch a corner against the ice fringing the land.
We waited breathlessly. It did!

“Away, Chipp!” shouted De Long, and in an instant our sledges started
to move off that spinning floe. The first got away perfectly, the
second nearly went overboard, the third sledge shot into the sea,
carrying Cole with it, and the fourth was only saved by Erichsen who,
with superhuman strength, shoved an ice cake in for a bridge. We
couldn’t get the boat sledges over; our floe was already starting to
crack up. Working frenziedly as it broke, the few of us left on the
floe pushed the boats, their sledges still under them, off into the
water and the men already landed started to haul the boats over to
them, when away drifted the last remnant of that ice cake, carrying
with it De Long, Iversen, Aneguin and me, together with six dogs! For
a few minutes we were in a bad way, threatening to drift clear of the
island on that tiny ice cake with no food, except perhaps the dogs;
while the men ashore ran wildly along the ice-foot, unable to help us
in any manner.

Fortunately for us, a little further along a swirl drove our floe in
against a grounded berg for a second and dogs and all, we made a wild
leap for it; successfully too, for only three of us landed in the
water. Aneguin, the Indian, proved the best broad jumper. He landed
safely enough on the berg and dragged the rest of us up and out.

Soon reunited again, behind our dripping captain the entire ship’s
company straggled across the ice-foot to solid ground (the steep face
of the cliff), where clinging to the precipice with one hand, the
captain for the third time on our voyage displayed his silken banner,
proudly rammed its staff for a moment into the soil, and exclaimed,

“Men, this is newly discovered land. I therefore take possession of it
in the name of the President of the United States, and name it,

“BENNETT ISLAND!”

The men, most of them (except the five who had landed with me on
Henrietta Island) with their feet on solid ground for the first time in
two years, cheered lustily. Jack Cole then sang out,

“All hands, now. Three cheers fer Cap’n De Long!” in which all again
joined except Collins and (for the first time in his life managing to
keep his mouth shut when anybody gave him an order) Newcomb.

But our happy captain, not noticing that, turned to his executive
officer and jocularly remarked,

“We’ve been a long time afloat, Mr. Chipp. You may now give the men all
the shore leave they wish on American soil!”

It was July 28th when we landed; we stayed a week on Bennett Island,
resting mainly, while Nindemann and Sweetman worked strenuously
repairing our boats. All were badly damaged and unseaworthy from the
pounding they had received in the pack. The whaleboat especially, our
longest boat, had suffered severely and every plank in its stern was
sprung wide open. Sweetman did the best he could in hurrying repairs,
pouring grease into the leaking seams and refastening planks, but it
was a slow job nevertheless.

While this was going on, the men explored Bennett Island, which we
found to be of considerable extent (we never got to its northwest
cape), probably thirty miles long and over ten miles wide, very
mountainous, with many glaciers, running streams, no game we ever saw,
and thousands of birds nesting on the cliffs. This island, at least
three times the size of Henrietta Island, nicely finished off the
honors due the Bennett family, for we now had one each for Mr. Bennett,
his sister, and his mother.

Geologically, we found the island interesting. I discovered a thick
vein of bituminous coal, and Dr. Ambler found many deposits of amethyst
crystals, but what took our fancy most were the birds. We knocked down
innumerable murres with stones, which, fried in bear’s grease, we ate
with great relish. But they proved too much for Dr. Ambler’s stomach,
laying him in his tent for over a day.

On August 4th, with the boats all repaired, we made ready to leave. To
the southward of Bennett Island, the pack looked to us badly broken up
with enough large water openings to make it seem that thereafter we
could proceed mostly in the boats among drifting floes, keeping the
sledges for use when required. To this end, since the dogs would be
less necessary and feeding them on our pemmican an unwarranted further
drain on our stores, De Long ordered ten broken-down dogs to be shot to
avoid their suffering should we abandon them, keeping only the twelve
best for future sledging, including husky Snoozer who was by now quite
the captain’s pet.

By sledge over the pack we had travelled almost exactly a hundred miles
in a straight line from where the _Jeannette_ had sunk to Bennett
Island, though over the winding track as we actually crossed the
drifting ice we had dragged our sledges more than a hundred and eighty
miles and in so doing had ourselves tramped far beyond a thousand
miles on foot. We prepared hopefully to rely from then on mainly on
our boats, and for this purpose the captain rearranged the parties,
breaking up the sledge and tent groups in which we previously had
journeyed.

Into the first cutter with himself he took a total of thirteen—Dr.
Ambler, Mr. Collins, Nindemann, Erichsen, Kaack, Boyd, Alexey, Lee,
Noros, Dressler, Görtz and Iversen.

Into the second cutter (a smaller boat) under Lieutenant Chipp’s
command, he put ten—Mr. Dunbar, Sweetman, Sharvell, Kuehne, Starr,
Manson (later transferred to my boat), Warren, Johnson, and Ah Sam (who
later to lighten still further the second cutter, was transferred to De
Long’s boat).

Into the whaleboat, of which he gave me the command, also went
ten—Lieutenant Danenhower, Mr. Newcomb, Cole, Bartlett, Aneguin,
Wilson, Lauterbach, Leach, and Tong Sing.

Thus we made ready, with De Long commanding the largest and roomiest
boat, Chipp commanding the smallest boat, and me in command of the
whaleboat, considerably our longest craft though not our greatest in
carrying capacity. And promptly there flared up in the Arctic an echo
of that Line and Staff officer controversy agitating our Navy at home.
(At home, it lasted until the Spanish War showed that we engineers were
as important in winning battles as deck officers, and maybe more so.)

I, as an engineer officer, belonged to the Staff; Danenhower, as a deck
officer, belonged to the Line, which alone maintained the claim to
actual command of vessels afloat. A whaleboat was not much of a vessel,
but nevertheless Danenhower, when he heard of the assignments, promptly
informed me he was going to protest to the captain.

“Go ahead, Dan,” I said. “That’s perfectly all right with me.” So the
navigator went to the captain to object to a staff officer being given
command while he, a line officer, was put under my orders. In that
congested camp on Bennett Island, he didn’t have far to go to find the
skipper.

“Captain,” asked Dan, “what’s my status in the whaleboat?”

“You are on the sicklist, sir,” replied De Long.

“Who has command of the boat?” persisted Dan.

“Mr. Melville, under my general command.”

“And in case of a separation of the boats?” questioned the navigator.
“Suppose we lose you?”

“In that case,” said the captain, “Mr. Melville has my written orders
to command that boat and what to do with her.”

“Am I under his orders?”

“Yes, so far as it may be necessary for you to receive orders from him.”

“But that puts me under the orders of a staff officer!” objected Dan
strenuously.

“Well, you’re unfit to take command of the boat yourself,” pointed out
the skipper. “You can’t see, Mr. Danenhower. I can’t put you on duty
now. So long as you remain on the sicklist, you will be assigned to no
military control whatever.”

“Why can’t I be put in a boat with a line officer, then?” asked Dan,
the idea of having to report to a staff officer rankling badly.

“Because I have no line officer left to put in that boat with you, and
because I have seen fit so to distribute our party. I want one line
officer in each boat. In an emergency, Mr. Melville may wish to have
your advice on matters of seamanship.”

“Well then,” replied Danenhower vehemently, “I remonstrate against
being kept on the sicklist.”

“But you’re sick and that’s nonsensical,” said De Long curtly.

“Why, sir, haven’t I the right to remonstrate?”

“You have, and I’ve heard you, and your remonstrance has no effect,”
replied the captain bluntly. “I’ve had the anxiety of your care and
preservation for two years and your coming to me on these points now
is simply an annoyance. I will not assign you to duty till you’re
fit for it, and that will be when the doctor discharges you from the
sicklist. I will not put other people’s lives in jeopardy by committing
them to your charge, and I consider your urging me to do so is very
un-officer-like conduct.”

Taken aback at this barbed comment on his complaint, Danenhower asked
hesitantly,

“Am I to take that as a private reprimand?”

“You can take it any way you please, Mr. Danenhower,” concluded the
irritated De Long, walking away to supervise the loading of the first
cutter, leaving the crestfallen navigator no alternative but to come
back to join me in the whaleboat.

“Don’t take it so hard, Dan,” I suggested. “Too bad about your eyes,
of course, but it can’t be helped now. We’ve always been the best of
friends and we’re not going to let this change things. As long as
you’re in the whaleboat, you can count on me, old man, not to say or do
anything that’ll hurt your feelings as an officer. Hop in, now; we’re
shoving off!”

Already delayed two days by bad weather, on August 6th we got away from
Bennett Island, with intense satisfaction, though the wind had died
away, being able to get underway in our boats under oars, carrying the
sledges and our twelve remaining dogs. The boats, of course, packed
with men, food, records, sledges, and dogs, were heavily overloaded and
in no condition to stand rough weather, but we had smooth water and
we made two miles before bringing up against a large ice island. Here
we lost most of our dogs, who not liking water anyway, and objecting
still more to the unavoidable mauling they were getting in the crowded
boats from the swinging oars, promptly deserted the moment they saw ice
again, by leaping out on the floe, and we were unable to catch them.
We worked around the ice pack in the boats, by evening getting to its
southern side, where we camped on the ice, with five miles between us
and Bennett Island, a good day’s work and a heaven-sent relief from
sledging.

The weather was startlingly clear. Looking back, we got a marvelous
view of the island. When we had first reached it in late July, its
appearance was quite summery with mossy slopes and running streams,
but now winter had hit it with a vengeance. Everything on it was
snow-covered and the streams were freezing. We regarded it with
foreboding. The first week of August and the brief Arctic summer was
fading away, with four hundred miles before us still to go on our
journey to the Lena Delta. We must hurry, or the open leads we now had
for the boats would all soon freeze over.

For two weeks we stood on to the southwest, boating and sledging.
With luck in pushing away the ice with boathooks, we might make five
or six miles between broken floes before we met a pack we could not
get through afloat, when it was a case of unload the boats, mount
them on their sledges, and drag across the ice. By the second day of
this, we were down to two dogs, Snoozer and Kasmatka, all the rest
having deserted, but these two special favorites were kept tied and
so prevented from decamping. The boat work, whether under sail or
oars, was hard labor. There was no open sea, merely leads in the open
pack, and over most of these leads, the weather was now cold enough to
freeze ice a quarter of an inch thick over night. We found we could
not row through this, so the leading boat, usually the first cutter,
had to break a way, and all day long men were poised in her bows with
boathooks and oars breaking up the ice ahead. And we had before us
several hundred miles of this!

The weather was bad, mostly fog, snow squalls, and some gales, but
because of the vast amount of floating ice, there was no room for a
heavy sea to kick up, and when a moderate sea rose, we always hauled
out on the nearest floe. And so camping on the ice at night, hauling
out for dinner, and making what we could under sail or oars in between
when we were not sledging over the pack, we stood on to the southwest
for the New Siberian Islands. At the end of one week’s journeying,
the snowfalls became frequent and heavy, troubling us greatly, though
they did provide us with good drinking water which was an improvement
over the semi-salted snow we got on the main pack. By now it was the
middle of August, sixty days since we had left the _Jeannette_, and the
expiration of the period for which originally we had provided food. We
were hundreds of miles from our destination, and our food was getting
low. Of course had it not been for our going on short rations soon
after our start, our position would now be precarious, since the few
seals, birds, and the solitary bear we got, while luxurious breaks in
our menu so long as they lasted (which wasn’t long) meant little in the
way of quantity.

By August 16th, nine days underway from Bennett Island, we had made
only forty miles—not very encouraging. Next day we did better—ten
miles under sail with only one break, but the day after, it was once
more all pulling with the oars and smashing ice ahead and slow work
again. But on August 19th we saw so much open water that we joyfully
imagined we were near the open sea at last. We loosed our sails and
until noon went swiftly onward with the intention of getting dinner in
our boats for the first time without hauling out on the ice, and then
continuing on all night also. Suddenly astern of us we saw Chipp’s boat
hastily douse sail, run in against a floe, and promptly start to unload.

There was nothing for the rest of us (cursing fluently at the delay)
to do except to round to and secure to the ice till Chipp came up,
and long before he had managed that, the ice came down on us from all
sides before a northeast wind, so that shortly it looked as if there
was nothing but ice in the world. Chipp finally sledged his boat over
the pack to join us and we learned the ice had closed on him suddenly,
stove a bad hole in his port bow, and he had to haul out hurriedly to
keep from sinking.

By three p.m., Chipp had his boat repaired, using a piece of pemmican
can for a patch, and we were again ready. Each boat had its sledge, a
heavy oaken affair, slung athwartships across the gunwales just forward
of the mast. Abaft that, the boats were jammed with men and supplies,
the result being that they were both badly overloaded and topheavy.

With great difficulty we poled our way through ice drifts packed about
us to more open water and made sail again before a freshening breeze,
De Long in the first cutter leading, my whaleboat in the middle, and
Chipp with the second cutter astern of all. We felt we must be nearing
the northerly coasts of the New Siberian Islands, which we hoped to
sight any moment and perhaps even reach by night.

The breeze grew stronger and the sea started to kick up. My whaleboat
began to roll badly, taking in water over the gunwales, and at the
tiller I found it difficult to hold her steady on the course, though
with some bailing we got along fairly well, and so it seemed to me did
the first cutter ahead. But the second cutter astern, the shortest
boat of the three, was behaving very badly in that sea—rolling
heavily, sticking her nose into the waves instead of rising to them,
and evidently making considerable water. Hauling away a little on
my quarter and drawing up so he could hail the captain ahead, Chipp
bellowed down the wind,

“Captain! I’ve either got to haul out on the ice or heave overboard
this sledge! If I don’t, I’ll swamp!”

De Long decided to haul out. He waved to Chipp and me (he being to
leeward, we couldn’t hear him) indicating that we were to haul out on a
floe nearby on our lee side. The near side of that floe, its windward
side, had a bad surf breaking over the ice, so we tried to weather a
point on the floe and get around to its lee where we could see a safe
cove to haul out in, but our unwieldy boats would not sail close enough
to the wind, and we failed to make it. Chipp’s case by this time was
desperate; his boat was badly flooded and in spite of all the bailing
his men could do, the waterlogged cutter seemed ready to sink under
him. There was nothing for it but to land on the weather side of the
ice, which dangerous maneuver, with a rolling sea breaking badly on the
floe and shooting surf high into the air, was skilfully accomplished
without, to our intense relief, smashing all our boats beyond repair.

The gale grew worse. It was now 7:30 P.M. and beginning to get dark.
(Between the later season of the year and our being farther south, we
no longer had the midnight sun with us, but instead about eight hours
of darkness.) There was no hope of further progress that night, so we
pitched camp on the floe, while the gale started to push ice in about
us from all directions.

That night before supper, the captain called Chipp and me to his tent.
The question for discussion was the boat sledges. We had since leaving
Bennett Island broken up all our other provision sledges and burned
them for fuel. Chipp strenuously insisted that the boat sledges be
treated likewise immediately.

“Captain,” he said, “I’m surprised I’m here to talk about it even! My
boat’s so topheavy with that sledge across her rails, a dozen times I
thought she’d either founder or capsize. And a man can’t swim a minute
in these clothes in that ice water. If she’d sunk under me, long before
you or the chief could’ve beat back against that wind to pick us up,
we’d all be gone!”

With Chipp’s facts, honestly enough stated, De Long was inclined to
agree and so was I, but the question was too serious to be decided out
of hand. On our first journey across the pack, the sledges were our
salvation, and it was the heavy boats (holding us back like anchors)
which we then gravely considered abandoning lest our party perish
before we ever reached water. Now the situation was reversed; it was
those boats, dragged across the ice at the cost of indescribable agony,
which had become our main hope of escape, but still could we afford to
abandon the sledges which so obviously now imperilled our safety in
the boats? We were not yet out of the pack; one had only to poke his
head through the tent flap to see as much ice as ever we had seen. And
if we had to sledge over much more of the pack to get south, without
those boat sledges we couldn’t do it. What then should be done with the
sledges?

With our lives very likely depending on that decision, we considered
it deeply. The conclusion, concurred in by all, was that the certainty
of disaster if we kept the sledges, outweighed the possibility of
being now caught permanently in pack ice, unable to move except by
sledging, and De Long finally give the order to burn the sledges. In
a few minutes, knives and hatchets in the hands of sailors eager to
make an end of those incubi before the captain could change his mind,
had reduced them to kindling and they were burning merrily beneath our
pots. No man regretted seeing them go who had toiled in the harnesses
dragging them and their bulky burden of boats across the ice pack,
laboring as men have never done before, and as I hope may never have to
again.

Further to help Chipp, the captain in expectation next morning of a
long voyage among the New Siberian Islands, decided to even matters
somewhat more by removing from Chipp’s stubby cutter, only sixteen
feet long, part of its load. Accordingly he decreased its crew by two
men, taking Ah Sam (our Chinese cook who had since the sinking of the
_Jeannette_ with nothing but pemmican on the menu, not cooked a meal,
serving instead only as a beast of burden like all others) into the
first cutter with him, and sending Manson, a husky Swedish seaman, to
join my crew in the whaleboat. In addition, De Long took into the first
cutter part of Chipp’s supply of pemmican, still more to lighten his
boat which was certainly a worse sea boat than either my twenty-five
foot long whaleboat or his own twenty foot long cutter.

With these rearrangements, we camped for the night in the midst of a
howling gale drifting snow about our tents, the while we earnestly
hoped that the wind would break up the pack in the morning, and allow
us to proceed.

But instead, for ten wearing days we lay in that camp, unable to launch
a boat and unable of course to sledge them over the broken pack, while
the weather varied between gales with heavy snow and dismal fogs, and
we ate our hearts out in inaction, watching our scanty food supplies
constantly melting away with no progress to show for it. Our hard bread
gave out altogether, our coffee was all used up, and our menu came down
to two items only, pemmican and tea three times a day, with an ounce
of our fast-vanishing lime-juice for breakfast to ward off scurvy. To
save what little alcohol we had left (we had been using it for fuel for
making tea and coffee) we continued to burn up the kindling from our
boat sledges, but long before we broke camp, even that was all gone,
and we started again on our precious alcohol.

The tobacco gave out (each man had been permitted to take one pound
with him from the _Jeannette_). To the captain, an inveterate pipe
smoker, this was a severe trial and left him perfectly wretched, till
Erichsen, who still had a trifle left, generously shared with him the
contents of his pouch. De Long declined to take more than a pipeful,
but Erichsen insisting on an even division of his trifling remnant, the
skipper found he had enough for three smokes. Immediately seeking out
the doctor and Nindemann, he divided with them and together they puffed
on their pipes, in a mixed state of happiness and despair watching the
last tobacco from the _Jeannette_ curling upward in smoke wreaths into
the Arctic air.

Next day, like the others, they were smoking used tea leaves and
getting little solace from them.

Our second day in this camp, through a rift in the fog we sighted land
twenty miles to the southward, in the captain’s opinion the island of
New Siberia, one of the largest islands of the New Siberian group and
the one farthest eastward in that archipelago.

As the days went by and in the fog and snow we drifted westward with
the pack before an easterly gale, the knowledge of that unapproachable
island added to our aggravations. We could do little except repair our
boats (which, using pemmican tallow, rags, and lampwick for caulking
materials, Nindemann and Sweetman labored at) and wait for the pack to
open, a constant watch night and day being set with orders that if a
lead appeared, we should immediately launch our boats into it. But none
showed up. In desperation at the delay, which was bringing us face to
face with the prospect of starvation, De Long again sent for Chipp and
me.

“Mr. Chipp,” he asked, “can you move your boat across this ice to the
land?”

“No,” said Chipp flatly. “It’ll stave in her bottom trying to ride her
on her keel.”

“Mr. Melville,” turning to me, “can you get the whaleboat across?
Is this any worse than when you landed with the dinghy on Henrietta
Island?”

“Captain,” I replied sadly, “no worse, but it’s as bad; the ice is just
as much alive. And I didn’t take the little dinghy to Henrietta Island,
even on her sledge; I left her at the edge of the moving pack. I can
get the whaleboat across this ice to that island if you order me, sir,
but when she gets there, she’ll be worthless as a boat.”

“Well, in that case,” remarked De Long, bitterly disappointed at our
views, “it’s no use taking them there.” And while he didn’t voice it,
there was little question but that he deeply regretted having ever cut
up the boat sledges. In my opinion, however, sledges or no sledges, we
couldn’t safely get those boats through to the land over that swirling
ice between. We started to leave.

“Hold on a moment,” ordered De Long, pulling a book out from under his
parka, “there’s something else.” He pushed his head out the tent flap,
called to the man on watch in the snow. “Send Seaman Starr in here!”

In a moment or two, Starr, with his snow-flecked bulk practically
filling the tent, stood beside us. The captain opened the book. It was
in German, one of Petermann’s publications, the best we had on New
Siberia and the Lena Delta. Starr, aside from his Russian, could also
read German, and as he translated, De Long, Chipp, and I followed on
the chart, putting down Petermann’s data on the islands, and especially
on the Lena Delta, where near Cape Barkin were marked winter huts
and settlements, a signal station similar to a lighthouse, and the
indication that there we could get native pilots to take us up the
Lena. At this time the captain warned me that should we be separated,
Cape Barkin was to be our rendezvous. At that point the delta formed a
right-angled corner. To the westward from Cape Barkin, the coast ran
due west; but at the cape itself, the coast turned and ran sharply
south for over a hundred miles, while through both the northern and the
eastern faces of this corner-like delta, the Lena discharged in many
branches to the sea. But Cape Barkin at this corner we must make—there
between the pilots and the settlements shown by Petermann, our voyage
would end and our troubles would be over. The remainder of our journey
home would merely be a tedious and probably a slow trip on reindeer
sledges southward from the Siberian coast inland fifteen hundred miles
to Irkutsk, then a long jaunt westward by post coaches to Moscow, and
so back to America. The captain marked it all out, made two copies of
his chart, one for me and one for Chipp, and then dismissing Starr,
told us,

“There are your charts with the courses laid out to Cape Barkin. As
I informed you in my written order at Bennett Island, Melville, if
unfortunately we are separated, you will continue on till you make the
mouth of the Lena River, and without delay ascend the Lena to a Russian
settlement from which you can be forwarded with your party to a place
of safety and easy access. Try to reach some settlement large enough
to feed and shelter your men before thinking about waiting for me. And
the same for you, Chipp. That’s all, gentlemen. Be ready to start the
instant the ice breaks.” He drew out his pipe, ending the discussion.
We took our charts and departed, leaving the skipper trying to light
off a pipeful of damp tea leaves.

On August 29th, after ten days of fuming in idleness during which
time our pack drifted first westward and then southward, the weather
cleared a bit and we found ourselves between Fadejovski and New Siberia
Islands, and closer to Fadejovski, the western one of the pair. At
noon, Dunbar scouting on the pack, reported a lead half a mile away.
Immediately we broke camp, and carrying our provisions on our backs
while we carefully skidded our boats along on their keels, we dragged
across that half mile of floe to the water and launched our boats,
thankful even for the chance the remainder of the afternoon to fight
our way through swirling ice cakes to the southward. The drift in
that lead was rapid, the broken ice there was violently tumbling and
eddying, and as we swept down the bleak coast five miles off Fadejovski
Island unsheltered from the intense cold, with oars and boat hooks
savagely fending off those heaving floes on all sides of us to keep
our frail boats from being crushed, it was like making passage through
the very gates of hell! For two horrible days we worked along the
coast fighting off impending death in that swirling maelstrom of ice,
when with the pack thinning somewhat, we managed at last to work our
way to land on the southerly end of Fadejovski, three weeks underway
since leaving Bennett Island, and humbly grateful to find ourselves
disembarking still alive.

We stayed one night on a mossy slope trying to thaw our frozen feet by
tramping on something other than ice, and as Dunbar expressively put
it, “Sanding our hoofs.” They needed it. The most pleased member of our
party was Snoozer, now our sole remaining dog, who joyously tore round
chasing lemmings, while we sought for real game which we didn’t find.
And that night was served out our last ration of lime-juice which so
heroically salvaged by Starr from the sinking _Jeannette_, had shielded
us from scurvy for two and a half months on our tramp over the ice.
But we saw the last drops of that unsavory medicine disappear without
regret and without foreboding for the future, for now we were nearing
the open sea and our voyage was nearing its end.

Next morning we shoved off from the south end of Fadejovski, only to
discover despondently that we had embarked on a twelve days’ odyssey
through the New Siberian Archipelago before which our previous
sufferings seemed nothing. We had not wholly lost the ice; instead we
had only added to our previous perils some new ones—vast hidden shoals,
bitter freezing weather, long nights of sitting motionless and cramped
in our open boats, while the Arctic winds mercilessly pierced our
unshielded bodies, and the hourly dread of drowning in a gale.

It was seventy miles over the sea to Kotelnoi, the next island westward
in the group. To get there, instead of being able to sail directly
west, we found we had to stand far to the southward of Fadejovski to
clear a shoal, getting out of sight of land. When night caught us far
out in the open sea, we discovered even there shoals with less than two
feet of water, over which a heavy surf was breaking badly. Standing off
into deeper water, we beat all night into the wind to save ourselves
from destruction, for we had no anchors in our boats. Wet, miserable,
frozen by spray coming over, we stayed in the boats, so crowded we
could not move our freezing legs. At dawn we stood on again westward,
with streaming ice bobbing all about us, traveling before a fresh
breeze all day. In the late afternoon, having lost sight of Chipp and
the second cutter, his boat being unable to keep up, we finally spotted
a floe sizeable enough to camp on. De Long signalled me to stop; we
promptly secured to it and waited for Chipp to catch up, meanwhile for
the first time in thirty-six hours stretching our wet forms out in our
sleeping bags on the ice, while a gale blew up, snow fell, and the sea
got very rough, which gave us grave concern over our missing boat.
By daylight there was so much pack ice surrounding our two boats, it
seemed unbelievable we had arrived there by water, and our anxiety
for Chipp increased. We lay all day icebound, all night, and all next
day, occasionally sighting the mountains on Kotelnoi Island, perhaps
ten miles to the westward. And then Chipp and the second cutter finally
showed up, coasting the north side of our floe, half a mile away across
the pack, and soon Chipp and Kuehne, walking across the ice, were with
us. They had had a terrible time the night we lost them; long before
they sighted any floes, the gale caught them, and over the stern where
Chipp and Dunbar sat steering, icy seas tumbled so badly that all hands
bailing hardly kept the boat afloat till they finally found a drifting
floe. When at last he steered in under the lee of the ice, but one man,
Starr, was still able to jump from the boat and hold her in with the
painter while the others, badly frozen, could barely crawl out over
the gunwale. He himself and Dunbar in the sternsheets found themselves
so cramped from sitting at the tiller that they could not even crawl
and had to be lifted by Starr from the boat. To warm up his men, Chipp
had served out immediately two ounces of brandy each, but Dunbar was
so far gone that he promptly threw his up and fainted. The second day,
underway again, he had kept westward for thirty miles before sighting
us in the late afternoon, and there he was, with his crew badly
knocked out, in the open water on the edge of the pack surrounding us
completely.

To get underway next morning, there was nothing for it but to move our
two boats over the ice to where Chipp’s was, and with no sledges, we
faced that portage over bad ice with deep trepidation. Five men, headed
by Nindemann, went ahead with our solitary pick-ax and some carpenter’s
chisels to level a road. We carried all our clothes and knapsacks on
our backs, but De Long dared not take the pemmican cans from the boats,
for so scanty was our food supply getting that the chance of any man’s
stumbling and losing a can of pemmican down a crack in the ice was a
major tragedy not to be risked. So food and all, the boats had to be
skidded on their keels over the ice, leaving long strips of oak peeled
off the keels by the sharp floe edges as we dragged along. As carefully
as we could, all hands at a time on one boat, we lightered them along
that half mile, and when after seven fearful hours of labor we got them
into the water, it was with unmitigated joy we saw they still floated.

We made a hasty meal of cold pemmican, and all hands embarked. De Long,
last off to board his cutter, was bracing himself on the floe edge to
climb aboard, when the ice gave way beneath him, and he went overboard,
disappearing completely beneath the surface. Fortunately, Erichsen in
the cockpit got a grip on him while he was still totally submerged (for
he might not ever have risen except under the widespread pack) and
hauled him, completely soaked to the skin, in over the stern. Without
delay, except to wipe the water from his eyes, the captain signalled us
to make sail.

We fought again fog, ice, and shoals for six hours more to cover the
last ten miles to Kotelnoi, and when night finally caught us, all we
knew was that we were on a sandbank where we gladly pitched camp, in
total ignorance of whether we had made the island itself or an offshore
bank and caring less so long as we could stop. We found some driftwood
on the bank, made a fire, and soon, most of all the captain still in
his soaked clothes, we were trying to warm ourselves around it. So
ended September 4th.

The next two days we tried to struggle west along the south coast of
Kotelnoi, largest island of the archipelago, but a blinding snow-storm
and ice closing in held us to our sand spit. Going inshore, some of
the men found the long-deserted huts of the fossil ivory hunters, and
even a few elephant tusks, but not a trace of game, and our supply of
pemmican kept on shrinking.

Signs of physical breakdown were becoming plain enough in our company.
Our rations were slender and unsatisfying. Long hours on end of sitting
cramped and soaked in wet clothes and icy water, often unable in the
overcrowded boats even to stretch a leg to relieve it, no chance in
the boats to stretch out and sleep at all, and the mental strain of
working those small boats in tumbling seas and through tossing ice,
were beginning to tell. On the pack at least, each night we could camp
and stretch ourselves in our bags to rest after each day of toil; now
except when bailing, we were compelled to endure the cold motionless.

Captain De Long’s feet were giving way. Swollen with cold and with
toes broken out with chilblains, he could barely move about, and then
only in great pain. Dunbar looked older than ever, fainted frequently,
and the doctor said his heart showed a weakness that might carry him
off under any strain. De Long admonished the ice-pilot to give up all
work and take things easy, but even merely sitting up in the boat
was a strain which could not be avoided. To keep him braced up, the
doctor gave him a flask of brandy with orders to use it regularly.
Danenhower’s eyes continued the same—poor, but with one eye at least
partly usable when the sun did not shine, which fortunately for Dan in
all that fog and snow was most of the time. But Dan continued to pester
the doctor to put him off the sicklist, driving Ambler nearly wild that
he should be nagged to consider such an unethical request. Others too
began to complain—Erichsen of his feet, Cole of a general dullness in
his head. As for all the rest of us, gaunt and underfed, with seamed
and cracked faces, untrimmed whiskers, haggard eyes, shivering bodies,
and raw and bleeding hands and feet, against a really well man we would
have stood out as objects of horror, but there being none such amongst
us, our appearance excited no special comment among ourselves.

Our third day on Kotelnoi, we managed to work a few miles to the
westward along the coast, rowing and dragging our boats along the sand,
making perhaps thirteen miles inshore of the ice pack which we could
not penetrate to the sea beyond. But on September 7th, before an early
morning northeast breeze with the temperature well below freezing,
the pack opened up and we sailed away through drifting ice streaming
before the wind, for Stolbovoi Island, sixty-five miles southwest. By
noon, I concluded that somehow I must have stove in the bottom of my
boat, for we were making water faster than it could be bailed and the
boat started to sink. Signalling the others, I hastily ran alongside a
nearby floe, where my crew had a lively time getting the whaleboat up
on the ice before she went from under us. Capsizing her to learn the
damage, I was much relieved to find we had only knocked the plug up out
of the drain hole. We found the plug beneath the overturned boat, tried
it again in the hole, and found it projected through an inch. Evidently
bumping on some ice beneath the bilge had knocked it out, so I sawed
off the projection to prevent a recurrence, righted and floated my boat
again. Meanwhile being on the ice, we all had dinner and shoved off
again.

With a fair breeze, we stood southwest for Stolbovoi Island, fifty
miles off now. The breeze freshened and we made good progress, too good
indeed for Chipp and the second cutter, as both De Long and I had to
double reef our sails to avoid completely losing Chipp astern again.
The sea increased somewhat, the boats rolled badly, and we had to bail
continuously, but as we were getting along toward the Lena, that didn’t
worry us, nor did the fact that being poor sailors, Collins, Newcomb,
and Ah Sam became deathly seasick again.

We kept on through the night, delayed a bit from midnight until dawn
by streaming ice we couldn’t see and cold, wet, and wretched as
usual. Several times during the night we were nearly smashed by being
hurled by surf against unseen floes. Once, under oars, I had to tow
the captain’s boat clear of a lee shore of ice from which he couldn’t
claw off, to save him from destruction. But after daybreak, we could
see better our dangers and avoid them in time, so that we stood on all
day till four in the afternoon, when having been underway thirty-three
hours in extreme danger and discomfort, the captain signalled to haul
out and camp on a solitary floe nearby. Long before this, we should
have hit Stolbovoi, but a shift in the wind had apparently carried us
by it to the north.

After a cold night on this floe, at four in the morning on September
9th we were again underway through rain and snow. By afternoon we were
picking a path through an immense field of drifting floes which luckily
we penetrated and got through to the southwest, when sighting a low
island to the westward, evidently Semenovski, the last island of the
New Siberian Archipelago between us and the Lena, we abandoned all idea
of searching to the southward for Stolbovoi which we had never sighted,
and headed west instead for Semenovski. As luck would have it, the wind
of which we had too much the day before to suit some members of our
party, now died away completely and out went our oars. Through a calm
sea we rowed the lumbering boats for six hours, warming up the oarsmen
at any rate, though horribly chafing their frozen hands. Then, a fog
setting in at 10 P.M., and it being impossible to see the other boats,
the captain sang out through the night to haul out on the ice, where by
candlelight we ate our pemmican.

Next day, September 10th, still rowing through the fog, we made
Semenovski by noon, and after a passage of one hundred and ten miles
from Kotelnoi, we beached our boats and camped for a much needed rest.
We were all of us stiff, frozen, and sore, but Dunbar especially was
quite feeble and looked indeed to be on his last legs.

Semenovski, a tiny island, was to be our last stop before crossing
ninety miles of open ocean to Cape Barkin on the Lena Delta, with
little chance on that leg of meeting any floes large enough to haul out
on for shelter in case the sea kicked up. So while a few men went out
with rifles to look for game, we turned to in a final effort to make
our boats more seaworthy for this last ocean leg, our experiences so
far in rough water strongly indicating the need for improvement. On my
whaleboat, I took the canvas boat cover, and by nailing it firmly to
both bows and securing it tightly around the mast, I decked over my
bow, forming a sort of canvas forecastle. The rest of the boat cover,
from the mast aft to the stern, I split in half lengthwise, giving me
two long strips of canvas which I nailed fore and aft to the sides.
Then making a set of small stanchions which were lashed to the gunwale
on each side as supports, I had both starboard and port a flexible
canvas weathercloth eighteen inches high which the men on the windward
side could hold up with their backs against the fixed stanchions, in
effect raising our rail eighteen inches above the gunwale on either or
both sides, but allowing us to drop the weatherscreens instantly should
it become necessary to get out the oars. Cole and Bartlett did this
work on my whaleboat. Nindemann on the first cutter, and Sweetman on
the second cutter, fitted them out in a generally similar manner.

While this was going on, our hunters, accompanied by a dozen others as
beaters, spread across the narrow island and started to sweep it from
north to south. They soon started up a doe and its fawn, which fled
in fright, but before long a rifle shot knocked down the doe which,
quickly tossed over a small cliff onto the beach, was brought in a
boat to our camp. Needless to say, all else was suspended, driftwood
gathered, and at four o’clock, though it was long before our supper
hour, we turned to on a pound of venison steak apiece, which I have
little doubt surprised our astonished stomachs, as, accompanied by hot
tea, it went down our throats instead of the usual pemmican. That held
us until 8 P.M., when we had our regular supper (slightly delayed),
consisting of somewhat more than a pound each this time of roast deer,
which cleaned up the deer completely except for her bones. Out of these
we intended to make soup next day, all except one meaty bone which went
to the overjoyed Snoozer. And with that, we felt well fed for the first
time since Görtz provided us with bear steaks a month and a half before
off Bennett Island, bear steaks so far removed from us now in point
of time and suffering between, that it seemed almost in a previous
incarnation we must have enjoyed that bear!

During our second supper, it blew up half a gale and started to snow,
so the captain announced that since the next day was Sunday, instead of
getting underway, we would rest on Semenovski, finish our boat work,
and if we could, get that fawn, shoving off Monday for the Lena. I
thought this suited all hands, but apparently it didn’t for I heard
Collins grumbling to Bartlett,

“Losing over a day for the sake of a feed of meat!”

I looked at the sullen Collins curiously. Whatever the captain did or
didn’t do was wrong with him. Yet he had downed his “feed of meat” as
voraciously as anybody, but perhaps since he expected to taste it again
when he heaved it up after we got into the tossing boats, another feed
didn’t mean as much to him as to a sailor.

Sunday, as on every Sunday without exception which we had passed
whether on the pack or in the boats since the _Jeannette_ went down,
after mustering the crew and reading them the Articles of War, De Long
held Divine Service in his tent, attended as usual only by Chipp,
Ambler, Dunbar, Danenhower, and myself. Solemnly we listened, seamen
about to embark in frail shells for a long and dangerous voyage across
the open Arctic Sea, as De Long reverently read the service, and never
were we more sincere in our lives than when at the end our rough
voices, mingling with the freezing gale howling outside, rose in the
final fervent plea,

    “Oh, hear us when we cry to Thee
     For those in peril on the sea!”




CHAPTER XXXI


At 7:30 on the morning of Monday, September 12, 1881, ninety-two days
since the loss of the _Jeannette_, we shoved off from Semenovski
Island for Cape Barkin on the Lena Delta, ninety-six miles away to the
southwest of us. The _Jeannette’s_ company was disposed as follows:


_First Cutter_

  Lieut. Comdr. De Long
  Surgeon Ambler
  Mr. Collins
  Lee
  Nindemann
  Noros
  Erichsen
  Kaack
  Görtz
  Dressler
  Boyd
  Iversen
  Alexey
  Ah Sam
   (14)


_Second Cutter_

  Lieut. Chipp
  Mr. Dunbar
  Sweetman
  Warren
  Johnson
  Starr
  Kuehne
  Sharvell
    (8)


_Whaleboat_

  Chief Engineer
  Melville
  Lieut. Danenhower
  Mr. Newcomb
  Cole
  Bartlett
  Leach
  Wilson
  Manson
  Lauterbach
  Aneguin
  Tong Sing
    (11)

There was a fresh east wind blowing, the temperature was just below
freezing, and it appeared that we were in for a wintry passage. The
island behind us as we drew off was a mass of white snow standing out
from the dull gray sea. Whitecaps were running everywhere. As we had
anticipated, there was little floating ice in sight.

For the first hour, we made good progress, shielded somewhat by
Vasselevski Island to windward, this latter being a small island a
little to the southeast of Semenovski. By 9:30 A.M., however, we had
cleared Vasselevski and received the full force of the sea, careening
to it as the boats sped along with the taut sheets singing and our
dipping lug sails drawing full. For two hours we sailed on thus, the
first cutter leading, my whaleboat next, and Chipp in the second
cutter following me, all the boats tossing considerably. At noon, we
found ourselves running again through a moderately open drifting pack,
which since we had expected to encounter no ice south of Semenovski,
disturbed us exceedingly. But accepting what fate sent us, we seized
the opportunity, hauled in alongside a floe, and disembarked for
dinner—cold pemmican and hot tea boiled over alcohol stoves. I now had
five days’ short rations left in my boat, but this worried me little as
Chipp and I, stretching our legs on the ice for a few minutes before
reembarking, discussed our prospects. We were both very hopeful; with
the wind holding as it was from the east, we should make the last
eighty miles to Cape Barkin and the Lena Delta with only one night at
sea spent in our boats, and then good-by forever to hardship and to
pemmican!

“By the way, brother,” I asked, looking into Chipp’s wan face, so
thin now that the resemblance which he once bore to General Grant had
completely vanished (unless perhaps Grant also looked like that during
his Richmond campaign after the Wilderness), “have you taken aboard yet
that can of pemmican De Long is carrying for you? That’s your total
food supply from now on, you know.”

“No, the skipper’s still got it,” answered Chipp. “But I’m not
bothering; I’ll get it from him in the morning if we still need it,
which I doubt. Don’t worry, old fellow,” and jokingly he slapped me on
the back. “I never expect to have to eat that damned pemmican again!”

“Well, good luck and mind your sailing then, mate.” I shook Chipp’s
hand warmly. “We’ll stay reefed down so you can keep up with us.”

With a wave, I left him. Chipp was far and away the best seaman of us
all—no need to worry over him. I hastened back to my own boat, filled
up all our pots with freshly-fallen snow to be used for drinking
water on our voyage, and in a few minutes, we all shoved off and were
underway again, De Long’s last admonition to both of us being to keep
formation astern of him and hold our little squadron together.

The wind continually freshened and soon hauled to the northeast, dead
astern of us. This made the sailing more hazardous, for we now were
constantly exposed to the danger of jibing our sails, but for some
hours more, we bounced along over rough seas, on the whole grateful
for the occasional drifting floes we encountered because they tended
to break the waves. I managed to maneuver safely amongst these
floating menaces until four o’clock, when following the first cutter
through a narrow passage between two floes, a wave hurled my whaleboat
to leeward, staving in our starboard side against sharp ice and I
hurriedly had to haul the boat out on the floe to keep from losing
her. In fifteen minutes, while the other boats lay to in the lee of
that ice, I had her repaired by tacking a box cover over the hole, and
overboard again, we filled away to the southwest in regular formation.
That (though I soon had cause to regret it) was the last of the ice
pack we ever saw.

In the open Arctic finally, we ran on, the breeze freshening all the
time from the northeast and the sea picking up. Before long, Chipp
began to drop steadily astern, since both De Long’s cutter and my
whaleboat were far better sailors than his short cutter. To avoid
losing him, we had to reef sail, first taking one reef, and soon a
second, after which both the leading boats ran close-reefed while
Chipp, with his sail full out, barely managed to hold position in
column in my wake.

Jack Cole, who was my coxswain, had been steering since morning. Jack,
put in my boat by De Long because he had been such an excellent small
boat sailor, was, however, now a severe disappointment to me. For some
days he had been dull and apathetic, seeming hardly to know what was
going on in the boat. The weather we were facing required prompt and
vigorous action at the helm, so with some reluctance I relieved Cole of
the tiller, replacing him with Seaman Leach, and detailing Manson and
Wilson, good sailors both, to take the tricks following, intending to
relieve Leach in four hours.

As the late afternoon faded, the wind whipped up to gale force. Spray
came in over our stern, soaking all of us through and through, while
the freezing wind chilled us to the bone. Wet and miserable, buoyed
only by the thought that before that gale we should certainly make the
Lena and safety by morning, we struggled to hold position, my whaleboat
pitching and rolling badly, while ahead and astern of us, we could see
the other boats heaving even more crazily in the seas, a sight which
did little to encourage us. To keep from jibing, running free as we
were, I was forced to station a man with a boathook to hold out the
sail; and not daring to trust anyone else with the job, I manned the
sheet myself, hour after hour clinging to that freezing manila line.
Heavy spray began to break over our stern, and we started bailing.

But despite close reefs and frequently dousing sail to deaden headway,
we began to run ahead of the first cutter, which heavily laden as
that square-sterned boat was with the records of the expedition, its
stores, and more men than any other, proved a slower sailer than my
double-ended whaleboat. Vainly I tried to hold astern of the first
cutter, but each time I doused sail, the racing seas combing over our
stern came heavily aboard, forcing us to bail vigorously to avoid
waterlogging. By seven o’clock in the fading twilight with the wind
blowing a lively gale and the sea, already bad, rapidly getting worse,
I found my little boat in spite of all my efforts a thousand yards out
on the weather bow of the first cutter and steadily gaining on her.

At this moment, Manson sang out,

“Chief, Ay tank dat cutter ban making signals to us!”

Looking astern across the waves, I saw De Long waving to me, apparently
to come within hail. We were already close-reefed and there was no way
to achieve this except by dousing sail again and drifting while he
caught up, so I stationed several men to gather in the foot of the sail
(she was rigged with a single mast and a dipping lug sail) while the
yard came down. We partly doused sail and slackened speed, but as we
did so, a sea caught us and boarded our stern, flooding us all to our
hips in icy water. The men holding the foot of the sail, startled at
the fear of swamping, promptly let go and we had for a moment the chaos
of a flooded boat erratically heaving in the seas, a flapping sail
threatening to take the stick out of her, and every man bailing wildly
with any utensil at hand that would hold water.

We finally got her cleared and the sail hoisted to get some headway
and hold us before the seas, when we tried again. Once more we
were flooded, but while some bailed, the men at the sail, strongly
admonished to hang on no matter what happened, clung to it this time,
and we managed to drift almost within hail of De Long. I could see
him shouting to me from his cockpit, but whatever he said (I being
to windward of him) was lost in the roar of the gale. Just then
another sea rolled up and combed over both boats, nearly filling mine.
Instantly I jumped to my feet and bellowed down the wind to him,

“I can’t hold back, captain! It’s either run or swamp!”

Perhaps he heard me. I have a strong voice and I had the wind behind
me to carry my words along. At any rate, he could see the situation and
with another shout, also smothered in the wind, he waved energetically,
motioning me on.

I needed no more. Promptly loosing sail, we filled away, still bailing
our waterlogged craft, while I waved to him in acknowledgment. De Long
turned in his tossing cockpit, and I then saw him motioning violently
to Chipp, half a mile astern, possibly wanting him to come close enough
aboard to toss over that forty-five-pound can of pemmican, the only
food Chipp’s men would have, before the gale and the darkness separated
them.

But I had my hands full in my own boat and paid little attention.
We hoisted sail, shook out one reef, and shot ahead down the wind
before another sea could catch us and finish the job of swamping us
completely. Having gathered sufficient headway to maneuver a bit, I
hauled the boat a few points closer to the wind, so that instead of
heading southwest dead before it with the consequent grave danger of
jibing the sail and broaching to before the oncoming seas, we now ran
with the wind on our port quarter, heading roughly south and driving
hard amidst heavy seas. We had our canvas weathercloths up on both
sides, with the freezing men in the boat, their backs against the
cloths to hold them in position, themselves all standing poised with
pans ready to bail in the brief intervals when not actually bailing.
And indeed, had it not been for those canvas weathercloths, so
carefully fitted the day before at Semenovski, we should long since
have foundered. As it was, we huddled behind them, all save Leach at
the tiller, with huge seas rolling past our raised sides and sweeping
heavily along the billowing canvas screens, over which even so, spray
and some solid water from every crest dashed into the boat.

The sea was now running mountains. Our little boat was tossing wildly,
rising dizzily to every crest as it swept up, then plunging madly down
into the trough as the wave rolled by. The wind roared on, icy spray
cutting like a knife drove into the boat, our sheets and halliards sang
in the gale, while the mast in its step creaked dismally and our yard
whipped so violently in spite of a double-reefed sail, that with each
gust as we rose on a crest and the wind caught us squarely, I began to
fear that both mast and sail would go flying from us down the wind like
a suddenly released gull.

“Look!” shouted Leach at the tiller. “The skipper’s signalling us
again, chief!”

“Never mind him!” I growled. “Watch your steering, Leach. We’re on our
own now. Nobody sees any more signals for us!”

But nevertheless I looked aft myself through the twilight. We were fast
outdistancing the first cutter where half a mile to windward already, I
could see De Long gesticulating in the stern. But Leach was mistaken;
De Long seemed to be waving to Chipp a thousand yards to windward of
himself, and now a mile astern of us. As I stared, shielding my eyes
as best I could from the sharp spray, I saw the second cutter rise
against the sky on the crest of a breaking wave, then sink into the
trough. Again she rose, when an immense sea swept over her and she
broached, lying helplessly broadside to the gale! Instantly her sail
jibed and the yard swung over, binding yard and sail against the mast.
A man sprang up, sharply outlined against the horizon, struggling
frenziedly to clear the jammed sail from the mast, then the heeling
boat plunged broadside from my sight into the trough. The second cutter
had evidently swamped!

Suddenly sick, I watched that spot as wave after wave rolled by, but
nothing rose again, and only flying foam and breaking seas met my gaze.
Broken-hearted, I stared across that mile of raging sea at the scene of
that swift tragedy. There was nothing we could do. No boat could ever
beat a mile dead to windward against such waves; long before we could
even get our boat into the wind on the first tack, the icy waters and
the tumbling seas had ended the agony of the men in the second cutter.

I sank back in the sternsheets, sobbing for the shipmates I had lost.
Quiet, taciturn Chipp, who by sheer will power had conquered sickness
to lead his men across the pack; grizzled old Dunbar, who had broken
his health scouting paths for us over the ice; huge Starr, whose
herculean back had many a time lifted my jammed boat over the hummocks
in the pack; little Sharvell, whose comical seriousness had often
lightened our months of tedious drifting; Sweetman, Warren, Johnson,
Kuehne, good seamen every one—their struggles were forever ended. All
their agonizing labors to escape from death in the pack had brought
them only death in the foaming waves. Now their voyage over, they
were slowly sinking through the cold depths to unmarked graves in the
desolate Arctic Sea!

Chipp, the best seaman of us all, had swamped in the gale, and we were
soon like to follow, for what chance was there for us where his skill
was insufficient? But at least we in the whaleboat were still afloat.
What of the first cutter? Fearfully, I looked aft again for her.

Still half a mile off our starboard quarter, there she was, plunging
furiously along before the tumultuous waves, holding grimly to her
original course, southwest, dead before the gale for Cape Barkin. I
shook my head sadly. De Long should haul closer to the wind. As he
was heading, it would be a miracle if the square-sterned first cutter
lasted ten minutes, for one bad jibe would dismast his boat and broach
her also, needing only another wave to send her tumbling on her side
to follow in Chipp’s wake. But it made little difference. Regardless
of course now, every sea combing past seemed ready to swamp our two
insignificant cockle-shells. Chipp was already gone. Any minute now, I
confidently expected to feel that strangling water in my throat, after
a few feeble struggles to be overwhelmed by the breaking seas and,
still gasping for air, to sink numbly through the frigid water to join
Chipp on the bottom.

I saw no more of the first cutter. On different courses, she soon faded
from our view into the night, and we were left alone, eleven freezing
men huddling in a tiny whaleboat in a world of roaring winds, of
mountainous seas, and of utter blackness.

We drove along before the storm, the wind on our port quarter, the
rushing seas pressing madly against our port side, with the canvas
weathercloth there billowing and sagging inboard as the crests swept
along the canvas and poured in over the top. Each time we slid
sickeningly down into a trough, all hands bailed for dear life,
fighting to get the flood sloshing round beneath the thwarts overboard
before we rose to the next crest and more water pouring aboard from the
succeeding wave swamped us completely. Every pot and pan we had in the
boat was pressed into service, and except for Leach, who braced in the
sternsheets, clung to the tiller and steered, and except for me manning
sheet and sail myself to keep us from capsizing, the others in the boat
alternately pressed their shoulders back against the weatherscreen to
hold it up while rising to the crests, and leaned forward, bailing
furiously while sinking into the troughs.

Numbed fingers clung to ice-coated pans, icy water sloshed over our
heads and down our necks, our frozen feet had long since lost all
sensation, and the careening boat beneath us pitched, rolled, and
heaved so dizzily that only by clinging continuously to the thwarts did
we manage to escape being tossed bodily overboard.

Leach in the stern, the one man besides myself whose task required him
to stand motionless in one spot, did a miraculous job of steering. Had
he but once allowed her to swing off the course we should have broached
immediately and capsized. But clinging to the tiller in the darkness,
more by feel than by such vague sight as the foaming crests sweeping
by gave him of the direction of the sea, he kept the wind on the port
quarter, standing himself wholly unprotected, a fair target for each
smashing wave breaking over the stern to drench him completely.

Straining my eyes through the blackness as I clung to the sheet, I
watched the seas coming over and the men bailing. It was obvious that
we were fighting a losing battle. Even though Leach at the helm and I
at the sheet managed to keep her from broaching or jibing or both at
once, and thus instantly ending the struggle, it was evident that those
bailing could not indefinitely keep ahead of the water coming in over
our stern, and sooner or later we should fill and founder. Oh, for some
drifting floes! If only we might run into another field of ice which
would at least deaden the seas if not allow us to haul out on a floe!
The ice pack, which many times in the long months past I had cursed
vehemently, I now earnestly prayed for as our only sure salvation. But
we had long since dropped astern the last floe, and now we must battle
it out with the turbulent sea. There was only one thing more I could do
before my men, barely able now to keep us afloat by bailing, between
numbness and exhaustion found themselves unable to keep the water going
overboard as fast as the tempestuous seas poured it in. Regardless of
the hazard involved, I must come about, head into the crests, heave to,
and ride out the gale bows on, held that way by a sea anchor, while our
canvas-decked forecastle, instead of our open stern, took the brunt of
the oncoming waves.

But to heave to meant inviting quick destruction, for the maneuver
involved turning broadside to the waves for an instant as we swung our
bow about to head into the wind. To make matters worse, while in that
critical position we must use our oars to swing the boat and that meant
dropping our weathercloths down to the gunwales at the very instant
when most of all we needed every inch of freeboard possible to avoid
taking over a solid beam sea and foundering out of hand.

Just abaft me, huddled against the weathercloth was Danenhower. I
leaned over in the darkness and shouted into his ear,

“Dan, it’s blowing like blazes! We’d better heave to!”

Dan turned his face, with his bandage dripping water, toward me and
nodded,

“Yes, Melville. You should have done it long ago!” he yelled back.

That startled me, for if he thought so, Dan should certainly have made
the suggestion himself. Why had he chosen instead to keep his mouth
shut? But it was no time to argue why or wherefor. We must heave to.

“Get hold of Jack Cole!” I roared. “We’ll try it now!”

Soon in the sternsheets, Cole, Danenhower, and I were debating what we
should use for the sea anchor, or drag, to which the boat must ride.
Dan advised making the drag of three of our oars with our sail lashed
between them, but this I refused to do, for if we lost the sea anchor,
our oars and sails would both be gone and then we would be helpless
indeed. Canvassing what little else we had in the boat to stretch out
the sides of a drag, I hit on three brass-tipped tent poles, and these
I ordered used, with a section of tent cloth as the drag itself.

Working in the half-swamped boat, Cole and Manson together made
the drag, lashing the ends of the three tent poles into a six-foot
triangle, and then lacing inside it the piece of tent. Meantime
Danenhower unrove a small block and fall to get a line and from that
manila line made up a short three-legged bridle, one leg of which went
to each corner of the triangular drag, while all the rest of the line
was to serve as our anchor cable. The result of all this, when we were
through (which working under bad conditions in the darkness took two
hours) was that we had what looked like a large triangular kite at the
end of a long manila line, the main difference being that our kite or
sea anchor we were going to fly in water instead of in air, and as it
dragged vertically through the water, it was to hold us head to the
oncoming seas that we might ride them bows-on.

On one matter at the end of all this, Cole and I differed. The drag
had to be heavy enough to sink beneath the surface, for if it floated,
it would be ineffective. But if it were too heavy, it would sink too
far and instead of streaming out ahead of us, would hang vertically
beneath our bows, keeping them from rising to the seas, and helping to
swamp us. Cole stoutly maintained that the completed drag was not heavy
enough to sink. While somewhat inclined to agree, I refused to add more
weight, for to a buoyant drag I could always add more ballast, but it
was doubtful in that storm that I could ever get my hands again on a
sunken drag to remove excess weight, until the boat having swamped, I
caught up with the submerged drag on my own way to the bottom. However,
to appease Jack, I got a copper fire-pot ready to slide out on the line
if it should be necessary to add more weight, and we were ready to
proceed.

At this point, Lieutenant Danenhower, who had been busy making the
bridle, spoke up again.

“Melville!” he sang out in my ear above the howling wind. “Will you let
me heave her to?”

I hesitated. Dan was over half blinded. But, I thought to myself, in
this darkness that was no great handicap; he could probably see as
much as anyone. And certainly as a deck officer, he should know more
about handling a boat in a seaway than anyone else in her, including
me, an engineer. Our lives depended on that maneuver; I should be
derelict in my duty not to use the best talent available.

“Sure, Dan,” I replied, “go ahead and give the orders. We’ll all do
what you say.”

So to poor Danenhower, for nearly two years now nothing but a helpless
burden on the rest of us, had at last come opportunity to serve. The
crisp way in which he rattled out the orders, stationing the men,
infused new strength into the exhausted crew. To stocky Bartlett went
the most important task; he was posted in the bow with the drag, and
the anchor line was carefully coiled down at his feet, ready for
running freely out when he heaved the drag over at the word. Bosun
Cole stood by the halliards to douse sail, with Aneguin and Tong Sing
to gather in the canvas as it came down. I tended the sheet, Leach
steered, Manson stood by an oar poised high on the port side, and
Wilson an oar similarly ready to starboard. This left only Lauterbach
to tend to the bailing, for Newcomb, as always, was next to worthless
even though he now had the excuse of extreme seasickness to mask his
piddling efforts at real labor.

With a last all-hands dash to bail down as dry as possible, the men
took their stations. In silence and in darkness we waited, holding
up the weathercloths while several tremendous waves rolled by and we
rocked wildly to them. Judging then that we should have a momentarily
quieter sea, Danenhower bellowed,

“Out oars! Starboard the helm! Down sail!”

Down dropped the weathercloths, out shot the two oars, hard astarboard
went the tiller, and down came the flapping sail and yard as we swung
off to port, trying quickly to come about and head up into the sea.
Wilson to starboard gave way valiantly on his oar while Manson to port
backed heavily on his, endeavoring to get her spun about before the
next wave caught us broadside, when with the boat hardly more than a
quarter way round—Crash! came a wave tumbling in over our low gunwale
and flooding us to the thwarts!

Heaving to was forgotten. With might and main all hands dropped their
tasks to start bailing again except Leach and the oarsmen who struggled
desperately to straighten her out again on her old course before the
waterlogged whaleboat broached to the next wave and capsized. By the
grace of God we succeeded in that, and hearts in our mouths, bailed
madly while with the oars alone we kept away before the sea till the
boat was sufficiently dry to risk coming about once more.

After a hurried consultation with Dan, I stationed the men as before,
and we stood tensely by. Again we pitched crazily to a succession of
roaring crests and as we slid dizzily down the trough of the third one,
Dan once more sang out the orders.

This time, with oars thrashing the sea in desperation, we swung
more quickly, and before the next wave struck, we had the boat spun
about, head on to its breaking crest as our bow suddenly lifted to a
tremendous wave.

“Let go the drag!” bawled Dan, and Bartlett in the bow tossed over the
canvas triangle. At that instant, the bow dived sickeningly into the
next trough, and Bartlett, off balance, pitched headlong forward toward
the sea!

For an instant I thought he was gone completely with little chance of
our getting to him before the sea swept him away, but fortunately our
slacked halliards were streaming out over the bow and as Bartlett shot
overboard he got his right hand on the halliards, stopping his plunge.
The next second, as he hung there in air, the boat rose again to the
crest of a huge wave, the mast whipped back, and Bartlett came flying
inboard on the halliards against the mast to which he clung for dear
life as he slowly slid down to the thwarts.

Meanwhile other things were rapidly happening. Still manning the oars,
Manson and Wilson were holding us head to the seas while the drag line
ran out and I watched it anxiously till it brought up at the bitter
end. In disappointment, I saw that the drag was too light, coming
immediately to the surface and drifting down to leeward, holding us
not at all. We yawed badly, shipping water over both sides in spite of
all our two oars and the rudder could do to hold us bows on, and, as
expected, Jack Cole immediately piped up with,

“Shure, Mr. Melville, I tould yez so!”

“Right, Jack; you did!” I shouted. “And now we’ll fix it. Bartlett!
Send down that fire-pot!” Bartlett, again on his feet seized the copper
fire-pot and sent it sliding on a lashing out over the bow and down the
anchor line to the drag, which it promptly sank. A heavy strain came
immediately on the drag line as the sea anchor gripped the water and
in a few seconds we were riding head to the seas with our oars in, our
weathercloths once more raised on our bulwarks, our sail furled, and
the helmsman, as before, continuously steering to keep us from yawing
on the drag line.

My thumping heart quieted somewhat. Dan had done a fine job. We had
come about without capsizing and for the moment we were safe. All we
had to do now was to bail continuously to keep afloat, but so long as
our drag line held, we were secure. But as much vigilance as ever was
necessary, for if that line parted, and we went adrift, unless we were
immediately ready with the oars, our first yaw would probably also be
our last one.

By now it was ten o’clock and pitch dark. All through the rest of
that terrible night we tossed violently at the end of our sea anchor
line, bailing, always bailing. My hands were swollen by cold, blistered
from hanging on to the sheet while we sailed, and cracked and split
by freezing salt water, while my feet were both badly frozen. Leach,
who for the first time I now dared to relieve from his station at the
tiller, was as badly off as I, and the rest of the crew, not much
better. And now thirst was added to our sufferings, for we had not a
drop of fresh water, every bit of snow that originally we had in the
boat in our pots and kettles having long since been thoroughly soused
in sea water and spoiled.

The gale shrieked on, the waves rolled by, the cold spray dashed in
and froze on us, and in the darkness wearily and endlessly we bailed
the boat till at last came dawn to put the final touch to our misery
by adding to each man’s sense of his own suffering the sight of his
shipmates’ wretched state.

Cold, thirsty, and hungry after twelve excruciating hours of bailing,
my exhausted crew looked expectantly at me for their rations. In the
boat, there was nothing left in the way of food or drink but a little
pemmican.

Sadly I recalled Chipp’s last remark about his being through with
pemmican, only a jest when made, tragic now. Poor Chipp! Pemmican, in
truth, meant nothing to him any more. If only I had him and his second
cutter’s crew following astern of me again, how gladly would I divide
my meager supply of pemmican with them! Mournfully I looked at our tiny
stock. At the previous miserly rate of issue, it should last us five
days, but no longer did I dare to hope that Cape Barkin and rescue were
just over the horizon. Heaven alone knew where, drifting at the mercy
of wind and wave, we would be when the gale blew out. I must stretch
our food to the utmost. So in spite of grumbling from my ravenous
crew, I cut our already short ration squarely in half and issued for
our breakfast so small a piece of pemmican that not a man, after
swallowing his ration at a gulp, but growled for more.

At the end of that sea anchor line, our whaleboat weaved, twisted, and
leaped erratically about amongst the foaming waves, more terrifying now
that we could see the thundering crests sweeping down and breaking over
us, than even in the darkness. Monotonously we bailed; Aneguin, our
Indian hunter, and Charley Tong Sing, our Chinese steward, strangely
enough proving far more dextrous with the bailing pots than any sailor
in the boat. Almost helpless myself, with numbed hands and frozen feet
from long hours of hanging on to the sheet, I watched forward while
the endless task went on, keeping a weary eye on that thin manila line
going over our bow to our sea anchor, that thread to which our boat
rode head to the gale, our life line indeed.

And then mixed with the screaming of the winds, I caught a burst of
laughter. Laughter? I could hardly believe my ears. What in God’s name
could anyone see in our situation that was funny? Painfully I twisted
my ice-sheathed body round on the thwart to see, and then I groaned. On
the midship thwart sat Jack Cole no longer bailing, a maniacal gleam in
his eyes, rocking with childish glee in the spray of each wave as it
broke over the weathercloth and poured in on him, laughing, laughing
horribly. Jack Cole, our bosun, like a little child was splashing
playfully in the water!

Like a flash there came over me an understanding of Cole’s apathy and
inexplicable stupidity during the last few days. His mind had evidently
been going then; now after the horrors of the night, it was completely
gone!

That terrible laughter must not continue. With my whole crew near the
breaking point, a little more of that insane shrieking in the storm and
I would have only a boat-load of lunatics to depend on, if indeed I
did not soon become one myself. I dragged aft a bit, took Cole gently
by the hand.

“Come on, Jack,” I said kindly, “let’s go forward where we can see the
waves better and I can help you watch them.”

Jack stopped laughing, looked blankly at me, but offered no resistance
and together we dragged our frozen legs over the thwarts to the bow.
There, smiling happily, Jack started laughing again as a terrific sea
broke dead on our stem, nearly drowning me in foaming water.

In the midst of that insane cackle, I grabbed Cole suddenly by both
shoulders, pushed him heavily down beneath the thwart and shoved him in
under the canvas-covered forecastle forward of our mast, where at least
the canvas would muffle that ghastly laugh.

“Take a nap now, old fellow,” I said soothingly as possible. “You’re
tired!”

“Shure an’ I am that,” mumbled Cole from beneath the canvas. “But ye’ll
not be fergittin’ to call me agin soon so’s we kin watch thim waves?”

“No, Jack, I won’t,” I promised. “Just as soon as you’re rested.”

Without another word, Jack, half covered with the icy water sloshing
about in the bilges, went dead to the world, and I, turning wanly from
the gale, sagged back against the mast, staring at the haggard men in
the boat abaft me bailing, bailing, while the never-ending waves foamed
up and broke sickeningly over our bow.




CHAPTER XXXII


After four harrowing days in the whaleboat, the first two in the gale,
the second two fighting our way through offshore shoals in the open
ocean, we finally sighted land. Hungry, thirsty, frozen, we gazed as
hopefully across the sea at two low headlands barely showing above the
horizon as though they were the very gates of Heaven. Under oars, for
the wind at last had died away, we propelled our boat toward them,
and soon found ourselves between two low hills apparently forming the
mouth of a wide and muddy river running swiftly out into the sea. All
hands leaned over the gunwales, and finding the water sweet, we drank
greedily, regardless of mud, regardless of everything.

Where were we? Neither Danenhower nor I knew, but as that low and
barren coast trended north and south, I assumed we were on the eastern
side of the Lena Delta, how far south of Cape Barkin I could not tell.
But at least we had Siberia at last before us! My orders directed me
to land at Cape Barkin, where I should find native huts, but I had
had enough of the Arctic Sea for the present and for the future, and
with Barkin an unknown distance up an unknown coast, I decided to be
satisfied with the land I could see and proceed up the river before
me till I located some village there. So in spite of Danenhower’s
objections to my course, we rowed (that is, if the feeble efforts of
the half-dead sailors manning the oars could be called rowing) up the
broad river, constantly attempting to make a landing on either bank,
but always baffled by shoals which prevented us from getting within a
hundred yards of those flat and muddy shores.

Finally in the late evening after a gruelling day at the oars, we
spotted on one bank an abandoned hut, before which was a cove into
which we made our way thankfully, and for the first time in five days
landed to stretch our legs. I found that I could hardly move mine;
most of my men were in like case. Only Danenhower, whose blindness had
excused him from bailing, and Newcomb, who had most successfully evaded
it, had managed to keep their legs in shape so that they could walk.
The rest of us had practically to crawl from the boat.

Thinking to warm up and thaw out our blackened and frost-bitten feet,
we gathered driftwood, made a fire in the hut, and huddled round it,
stretched on the ground, with our numbed feet toward the fire. But
instead of helping, agonizing pains started to shoot from my paralyzed
feet as soon as the heat took effect, so stripping my legs for
examination, I found they were frozen from the knees down, terribly
swollen, covered with cracks, blisters, and sores all run together, and
with the skin sloughing off at the slightest touch. Excruciating pain
instead of sleep was my portion our first night ashore, and in place of
the eagerly awaited comfort which we had looked forward to in Siberia,
most of us writhed in pain, suffering the tortures of the damned.

At dawn, after a slim portion of pemmican washed down with muddy
tea, we launched our boat and set bravely out up the river to find
a village, only to discover instead that we were in a desolate maze
of shoals, swamps, and muddy islands forming the delta, with rivers,
sometimes swift and sometimes sluggish, crisscrossing erratically as
they flowed over the low delta lands to the sea. Young ice was forming
everywhere over river and swamp and through it with boathooks and oars
we had to smash a way for our bow. Three days of this we had to endure
alternating between slaving at the oars during the day and freezing at
night in our camps on the barren mud flats, while both night and day
we starved on scanty rations, and I finally began to despair of rescue.
Here we were on the Lena Delta, but of the many villages indicated on
Petermann’s charts, we could find no sign. Never a native did we see,
and the few huts we spotted now and then were all abandoned, their
owners having already retreated southward before the oncoming winter
which was rapidly robbing us of what little vitality remained in our
feeble bodies. Were we never to escape? Were all our sufferings to end
only in our deaths in the delta? Had we not already borne enough since
those harrowing years on the _Jeannette_ to be spared that? First the
torture of dragging boats and sledges over the pack, then the horrors
of navigating amidst the streaming ice of the New Siberian Archipelago,
finally that four-day nightmare of tumbling waves and freezing spray
in the open whaleboat battling an Arctic gale—was all this not enough?
Yet through all our trials since the loss of the _Jeannette_ we had
been sustained by the thought that if only we held out till we reached
the Lena Delta, there at last our sufferings would end, amid friendly
natives we would find food, shelter, and transportation home.

How different now was the reality! The Lena Delta we found a bleak
and barren tundra, empty of game, as inhospitable and as desolate as
that ice pack in which for two years we had drifted in the long-lost
_Jeannette_. Our dream of a safe haven had exploded in our faces. With
food gone, men worn out, and worst of all, the hope which had driven
us all to superhuman labor proved a lie, our situation was desperate
beyond conception. Bitterly we cursed Petermann and all his works,
which had led us astray.

But there was nothing to do save to move on, working always toward the
headwaters of the delta as long as we could swing the oars, so for the
fourth day in succession, we shoved off from a mudflat camp, broke our
way through new ice, and I pushed my men (whose arms fortunately were
a little better off than their legs) upstream toward the delta head.

And then, thank God, in the middle of this day, while deadened arms and
stupefied bodies swung wearily over the oars, we suddenly sighted three
natives in kyacks shoot out from behind a bend in the swamp!

Like drowning men grasping at straws, we waved to them, shouted to
them, and tried to row to them, but before the apparition of a strange
boat in their waters, they were shy and afraid, and not till I held up
our last tiny strip of pemmican did I entice one, more curious than his
comrades, close aboard us to taste the strange meat. Then like the jaws
of a trap closing on its victim, we grabbed his kyack before he could
dart away!

Badly frightened, the fur-clad native attempted to escape, but we would
sooner have released our only hope of salvation than our grip on that
poor Yakut who represented now our last slim chance to avoid perishing
in the maze of that frozen delta, and we held to him like grim death.
Gradually I calmed his fears, gave him the pemmican, endeavored in
pantomime to show him we were friendly, and at last holding to him
while we beached our whaleboat, convinced him of our good intentions by
giving him a little of the trifling quantity of alcohol we had left for
our stove.

The alcohol settled the question. He promptly hailed his two comrades
standing warily off in their kyacks, and soon all three of the natives,
warming up on pure grain alcohol, were our bosom friends. In exchange
for the alcohol, they gave us some fish and a goose out of which
mixture we promptly made a stew which we wolfed down ravenously. And
then with pencil sketches and gestures, I endeavored to make plain that
I wanted them to guide us to a village, and specifically to Bulun, the
largest town shown on my chart, some sixty miles up the Lena River
from the head of the delta.

It was remarkable how, understanding not one word of each other’s
language, we got along. The three Yakuts indicated we could not get to
Bulun on account of ice in the river, that we should all die on the
way. However, they made plain that another Yakut village, Jamaveloch,
they could take us to, and next day for Jamaveloch we started. But
so tortuous was the course and so hard the labor in working our boat
through the delta swamps and rivers, that not till a week later did
we finally, on September 26th, two weeks after the gale, arrive at
Jamaveloch. Had it not been for the food provided by our guides as well
as for their pilotage, it is inconceivable that we should ever have
arrived alive at this village at the southeastern corner of the delta,
seventy miles from Cape Barkin, and the only inhabited village for
over a hundred and fifty miles in either direction along the Siberian
Coast! Had we gone to Barkin, we should assuredly have perished, for
there, the natives told us, Petermann was absolutely wrong—there were
no villages, no lighthouses, no inhabitants of any kind there, nothing
but a barren coast.

But Jamaveloch itself was not very promising as a haven except for a
brief stay. It had but six huts and a few small storehouses, not over
fifteen adult inhabitants, and no great surplus of food. Doubtful that
its scant supply of fish and geese would long take care of eleven
voracious seamen thrown unexpectedly on the resources of so small a
community, I decided after one night at Jamaveloch to push on in our
whaleboat up the south branch of the Lena to Bulun, a hundred and ten
miles away by land but a hundred and fifty miles distant up the winding
river. Strenuously in their native Yakut tongue (some of which I had
now picked up) the villagers and especially their headman, Nicolai
Chagra, objected that ice in the river would block us and leave us
to perish along the uninhabited river banks, but I persisted. So
accompanied once more by my original native pilots, I loaded my sick
crew into the whaleboat, took aboard sixty dried fish (all I could
get) for supplies from Nicolai, and we started. In an hour we were
back. Nicolai Chagra was right. The _Jeannette_ herself could not have
plowed through the ice, alternately freezing and breaking loose in the
river, which swept downstream in the current, effectively blocking any
progress toward Bulun.

Willing or not, there was no choice but to stay at Jamaveloch. Unable
to walk, I crawled from the whaleboat and was hauled on a sledge from
the shore to a hut turned over to us by Nicolai; Leach, with the flesh
falling from his frozen toes, was hauled up on another sledge; and
most of the rest of my crew in the remnants of their tattered clothes,
crawled or hobbled after us.

For two and a half weeks we lay in that hut, slowly recuperating from
our frostbites, subsisting mainly on a slim ration of fish given us
daily by the Yakut villagers, and thinking up weird schemes of getting
away to Bulun. But till the rivers froze solidly enough to sledge
over the ice, there was no chance. Even then, the limited facilities
of the village could never provide the necessary sledges for eleven
men nor the clothes to keep us from freezing in the sub-zero weather
which October had brought. But get away soon we must, for all the
flesh had sloughed from several of Leach’s toes and he needed medical
attention badly if he were not soon to die; while Cole, lucid at
intervals, required expert care also if his mind were to be saved; and
Danenhower’s eye, a month now without surgical care, was beginning
to relapse. As for the rest of us, our legs were getting better and
we could soon drag ourselves about, but the food problem was rapidly
getting acute, and I was very much afraid that we should awake some
morning to discover that the natives, finding us too much of a drain
on their stores, had silently moved on in the night to some other
collection of vacant huts of which we knew nothing, leaving us to
starve alone lest everyone starve together.

The only solution to this dilemma, since we could not go to Bulun, was
to have Bulun send us the necessary dog teams, sledges, clothes, and
food to make the journey. How to get word to Bulun, however, was the
difficulty, for none of the natives would go and no man in my party
knew the road over the distant mountains to Bulun. I dared send no one
without a guide.

The reason given by the natives for refusing to undertake the trip was
that it was an impossible season for traveling, an in-between time in
which they could safely move neither by boat nor sledge. A few weeks
before, in early September, it would have been possible to go by boat
but now new ice forming everywhere prevented. A few weeks later, it
would be possible to travel by sledge cross-country over snow and ice,
but just now that also could not be attempted for the ice on the many
rivers to be crossed was continuously breaking in the current and was
nowhere yet thick enough to bear the weight of a sledge without grave
danger of crashing through into the river and losing sledge and dogs
at least, if not drivers also. To all our entreaties, Nicolai Chagra
merely shrugged his shoulders—early September, yes; late October, yes;
but now, a most decided no!

Providentially the matter was settled for us about the middle of
October by the chance visit to the village of a Russian exile, Kusmah
by name, who lived nearby and who on the promise of the whaleboat
immediately and five hundred roubles later (when I could get funds from
America) undertook to make the dangerous journey and started off with
his dog sledge over the frozen tundra to Bulun, expecting to return in
five days.

Vaguely, while he was gone, we speculated on how long it would take us
to sledge the fifteen hundred miles from Bulun via Yakutsk to Irkutsk
on Lake Baikal, and then via post road get to Moscow and so home. And
while we speculated over that, we also speculated earnestly over the
fate of De Long and the first cutter. There was no doubt that his boat
had followed Chipp’s, but over the question of how long the first
cutter had lasted in the gale and whether she had come to her doom
finally by capsizing or by swamping, there was many a hot discussion,
as my seamen argued vehemently over the relative probabilities of a
square-sterned boat like the heavily-built first cutter broaching
before she flooded, or vice versa. The consensus of opinion was that
she had swamped, for De Long had in his boat not only three more men
than we, but also Snoozer, the last dog, all the navigating equipment,
four rifles, the complete records of the expedition in ten cases,
and one small sledge which De Long had kept to drag the records on.
With so much ballast in his boat, that his men could have bailed fast
enough to avoid foundering seemed incredible to most of us after our
own experiences with the much lighter double-ended whaleboat, but the
broaching theorists would never agree to it. Chipp, whom all hands
freely admitted was the best sailor, had broached and capsized. How
then could De Long have avoided it? And since, crowded in our little
hut with nothing else to do, there was no outlet for men too feeble to
get about save in talk, the argument went on endlessly, and of course
with no chance of an agreement ever being reached.

Five days went by and Kusmah, our messenger to Bulun, had not returned.
Ten days elapsed and we became alarmed for Kusmah. Had he perished in
the ice? To add to our worries, Nicolai Chagra cut our food supply
from four fish a day to three, with occasionally a putrid and decaying
goose supplied in lieu of the fish.

I was seriously debating sending Bartlett, the strongest member of
our party, on to Bulun in the forlorn hope of getting us assistance,
when on the night of October 29th, after thirteen days’ absence on his
hazardous journey, Kusmah at last returned, bringing on his sledge some
supplies, about forty pounds of bread mainly, and no clothes for us,
but instead a letter in Russian from the Cossack commandant at Bulun
stating that next day he would start for us from there with a reindeer
caravan and clothes enough to bring us all safely over the mountains to
Bulun.

This news heartened us considerably, and in broken Russian I profusely
thanked Kusmah. Meanwhile my men, not waiting to thank anybody, were
revelling in the bread of which we had seen none for nearly five
months, breaking the loaves in huge chunks into which they sank their
teeth hungrily. All smiles at my expressions of approbation, and happy
at the way everyone seemed to appreciate what food he had brought us,
Kusmah bowed, then pulled from inside his fur jacket a dirty scrap of
paper which he tendered me. On it was a pencilled message. Pausing
casually between two mouthfuls of bread, I glanced at it, noted in
surprise that it was in English, and then as I read the first words, I
stiffened as suddenly as if I had been shot.

 “Arctic steamer _Jeannette_ lost on the 11th June; landed on Siberia
 25th September or thereabouts; want assistance to go for the CAPTAIN
 and DOCTOR and nine (9) other men.

  WILLIAM F. C. NINDEMANN,
  LOUIS P. NOROS,
  Seamen U. S. N.

 _Reply in haste; want food and clothing._”

For a moment my heart stopped beating as I read, then I called out
huskily,

“Men! De Long and the first cutter landed safely! They’re alive!”

All over the hut broken loaves of bread thudded to the floor as
open-mouthed in astonishment at this startling declaration, my
shipmates stared at me, then clustered round to read the note, while I
turned abruptly to Kusmah, asked in my best Russian,

“That note, Kusmah! Where did you get it?”

With some difficulty, Kusmah explained to me his trip. To get to Bulun,
he had to go fifty miles due west cross country over the mountains to
Ku Mark Surk on the Lena River (where he was delayed a week waiting for
the main stream to freeze over so he could cross) and then sixty miles
due south along the west bank of the Lena to Bulun. On his way back to
us from Bulun, coming again to Ku Mark Surk, he had met there a small
reindeer caravan of Yakuts bound south for Bulun and with that caravan,
clad only in tattered underwear and sick almost to death, he had come
across two strangers feebly expostulating with the natives against
going south and almost hysterical at their inability to make themselves
understood.

He spoke to them in Russian, with no better luck at communication than
the Yakut reindeer drivers had had, but suddenly recalling what we had
told him of our two lost boats, he enquired of them,

“_Jeannette? Americanski?_” and immediately the men had understood,
nodding vigorously in assent; and writing this note, had placed it in
his hands, begging him piteously,

“_Commandant! Bulun! Bulun!_”

That he understood also, but as he was bound for Jamaveloch and knew
that I would be most interested in the matter, he had forthwith
resumed his journey, and now, two days later, there was the message in
my hands, while Nindemann and Noros no doubt were by this time in Bulun
itself.

I retrieved the note from Bartlett and read it again carefully. De Long
had landed, but simply “on Siberia.” Where was he now? The note was
blank on that. I could not tell. But evidently he was in a bad way,
for Nindemann and Noros, somehow separated from their shipmates, were
from Kusmah’s account obviously far gone, and as for the others, that
closing scrawl,

“_Reply in haste; want food and clothing_” had an ominous ring. And
then my eyes fell again on “the CAPTAIN and DOCTOR and nine (9) other
men.”

Nine? Hastily I counted up. The captain, the doctor, Nindemann, Noros
and nine others—that made only thirteen! But De Long had had fourteen
all told in his boat! Was nine an error? No; as if to emphasize it, the
_nine_ was repeated as a figure in parenthesis. So already one of De
Long’s party had died. Sadly I wondered who. Collins, perhaps? No, I
decided; Collins had done no work on the ice to wear him down. Lee, my
machinist, was most likely, I concluded. His injured hips would have
made it most difficult for him to keep up and he might have had to be
left behind.

But this was no time for wondering. Only Nindemann and Noros could
tell me where the captain was and how to get there. And if those two
men were as badly off as Kusmah said, they might both soon die, taking
their secret with them. The Lena Delta was large, over 5000 square
miles in area, and from bitter experience I knew now how difficult
it was to find one’s way amidst its myriad islands, swamps, and
freezing streams. And as for charts, there were none worthy of the
name—Petermann’s, which had nearly led my party to starvation, was
worse than useless. I shivered as I thought of that. De Long, relying
on that same Petermann chart, had intended to land near Barkin! Barkin
and the north coast of the delta thereabouts, were not only uninhabited
and a hopeless stretch of barren tundra, but a hundred miles further
north and by so much further removed even from such slight shelter as
we had providentially encountered at Jamaveloch! De Long and his party
must be in fearful straits!

“Kusmah!” I said sharply. “Return with me to Bulun at once! Get your
dogs! We start right away!”

But Kusmah demurred, objecting that his dog team was completely worn
out and could not travel the ice again without several days’ rest.
On investigating his dogs, this proved to be true, so getting hold
promptly of Nicolai Chagra, I insisted vigorously that he provide
immediately from somewhere another team if it stripped the village of
its last dog.

Chagra was willing enough, but it took him all night to scrape up the
necessary dogs, and not till next morning, October 30th (a day which
later became indelibly burned into my memory), behind a team of eleven
dogs driven by my original Yakut pilot, did I set off in a temperature
twenty degrees below zero for Bulun where from Nindemann and Noros I
hoped to learn of De Long’s whereabouts. Two days later, after hard
labor by the dogs through deep snow and over broken ice, I was at Ku
Mark Surk, where I changed my worn-out dog team for a reindeer sledge,
and with that made the last sixty miles southward up the frozen Lena to
Bulun, arriving on the evening of November 2.

I promptly enquired my way to the hut where were lodged Nindemann and
Noros, and in mingled fear and hope hurried there. What was I going to
hear of my captain, of Dr. Ambler, about my other shipmates? Which one
of them was already dead, what chance had I of rescuing the survivors?
With my heart pounding violently, I pushed open the door of the hut.




CHAPTER XXXIII


In the smoky light of the rude interior of that Yakut hut, I saw at
first only Louis Noros, clothed in ragged woolen underwear, bending
over a rough table, sawing away with his sheath knife on a loaf of
hard black bread, while in a corner by themselves a number of Yakuts
were busy over the fire on their own supper. Noros glanced up on my
entrance, looked at me vacantly, and then resumed his hacking at the
hard bread. I waited a moment to see if he might recognize me, but as
he did not, I advanced, stretched out my hand, and said,

“Hello, Noros! Don’t you know me?”

Startled at being addressed in English, Noros dropped his knife, peered
intently in my face, and then fell on my neck, sobbing,

“My God, Mr. Melville, are _you_ alive?”

At this outburst, through the smoky room I saw Nindemann suddenly
lift himself on one elbow from a rough couch at the side and cry out
brokenly,

“Mr. Melville! We thought you were dead! That all hands on the
_Jeannette_ were dead except me and Noros! Louis and me thought we were
the only survivors—we were sure the whaleboat’s were all drowned as
well as the second cutter’s!”

Bending over Nindemann, too far gone to lift himself, while Noros clung
round my shoulders, I wept with them.

“No, boys,” I said gently, “the whole whaleboat’s crew is safe. And
they’re all overjoyed to know that you are too. But who died in your
boat, and where, for God’s sake, are the skipper and the rest of your
boat’s crew? I’ll go for them right away.”

“No use! They must be all gone by now!” sobbed out Nindemann feebly.
“Over three weeks ago, October 9th, the captain sent me and Louis south
to look for help, and they were nearly dead then; no food for seven
days and everybody frozen bad. We struggled to the south along the
river and were no more able even to crawl and nearly dead ourselves
when the natives found us twelve days after and carried us here.”
Nindemann’s choking voice broke hysterically. “Mr. Melville, we didn’t
want to come here, we wanted them to take us back! But we couldn’t make
anybody understand about the captain. And he was dying then. Now it’s
too late!” and falling back on his wooden couch, Nindemann wept like a
baby in my lap.

“Where are they now?” I asked sadly. “I’ll find them! Tell me; what
happened, boys?” and as I listened, the tears streamed down my
roughened cheeks as between them, Noros and Nindemann poured out the
story of the first cutter and its crew.




CHAPTER XXXIV


Before the steadily rising Arctic gale, the _Jeannette’s_ three boats
in broken formation were scattering in the storm. Dismayed at this
sight, De Long who had the only navigating outfit in the flotilla and
in addition was carrying all Chipp’s meager food supply, rose in the
sternsheets of his cutter and waved vigorously to the other boats to
get back in position astern of him. But seeing the whaleboat nearly
swamp attempting to drop back, he signalled her on.

Taking a second reef in his own sail to deaden still further his
speed, De Long continued waving to Chipp, hopeful at least of getting
him close enough aboard to toss over his can of pemmican before in
the storm and the night, he lost him to view. Badly flooded himself
by oncoming seas, he nevertheless held back, till Chipp and his boat,
suddenly engulfed in the waves, disappeared forever from sight.

Sadly then, De Long shook out one reef and picking up headway, stood
away dead before the wind, heading southwest for Barkin. Blonde and
bearded Erichsen, tall and brawny, a sailor from his childhood in
far-off Denmark and in stature a royal Dane indeed, the best seaman in
the boat, steered. Crowded into the cockpit before him were De Long,
Ambler, and Collins, while forward of them on each side of the boat,
backs to the weather cloths holding them up against the sea, were the
rest of the crew—Nindemann, the quartermaster, tending the sheet, Lee,
Kaack, Noros, Görtz, Dressler, Iversen, Alexey, Ah Sam, and Boyd.
Jammed under the thwarts, practically filling all the spaces there were
the sledge, the tin cases containing the _Jeannette’s_ records, the
navigating gear, the silken ensign in its oilskin case, the rifles,
tents, sleeping bags, cooking pots, and a few cans of pemmican, with
Snoozer, the last Eskimo dog, crouching on the sleeping bags and
whimpering piteously as the spray soaked him.

The heavily-laden first cutter, only twenty feet long but wider of beam
than any other of the _Jeannette’s_ boats and with all that ballast on
her bottom, therefore more stable and more resistant to capsizing than
either of the other two, lumbered on before the wind, pitching heavily
as the curling seas swept up under her square stern, and yawing badly
in spite of all that Erichsen at the tiller could do to hold her on her
course. Darkness fell, the seas grew worse, the crew bailed steadily.

Twice the boat yawed suddenly and the sail jibed violently, straining
the mast, but each time Erichsen managed to catch her and the yard and
sail were again squared and the boat stood on with the wind screaming
by and the merciless seas breaking heavily over the stern, soaking
Erichsen continuously and spraying everyone else with freezing water.

For an hour the boat stood on before the storm with the water coming
in over both sides and the stern, while her crew bailed vigorously
to keep up with it. And then, riding on the crest of a tremendous
wave roaring up astern, came disaster. The boat took a bad yaw as the
sea struck, the stern swung off to port with the crest. Immediately
the sail, caught flat aback by the wind, jibed over and the yard
banged viciously round to leeward, heeling the boat sharply down on
her port side and riding the lee gunwale completely under! Instantly
solid water came pouring in over the submerged rail. In another split
second, the half-capsized cutter would have been bottom up with her
crew spilled into the raging seas, had not at that instant the mast,
already weakened by the previous jibes, broken clean off, and with the
flapping sail shot overboard, momentarily relieving the fatal strain!

For one horrible second, the listing boat hung with her gunwale
under, poised uncertainly between going completely over and rolling
back, while her agonized crew, clinging desperately to the thwarts to
avoid being tossed out, felt cold death in the form of the inrushing
water lapping round their bodies! Then slowly, very slowly, under the
influence of the heavy ballast jammed along the bottom boards, the
dismasted cutter rolled back on an even keel, awash to the thwarts and
so deep in the water that her gunwales barely showed above the foaming
surface!

“Bail!” roared De Long. “All hands! Bail!”

A waterlogged wreck, the first cutter lay broadside in the trough
of the sea with every man in her buried in salt water to his waist,
frenziedly bailing to regain a semblance of buoyancy before the next
wave swept over her side and finished her. Fortunately at that instant,
the broken mast and the ballooning sail, dragging alongside by the
halliards streaming over the bow, caught the water, began acting as a
sea anchor, and the startled men in the boat, too busy bailing to lift
a hand for any other purpose, saw in amazement their submerged cutter
swing slowly round in the trough into the wind and sluggishly rise head
on to the next crest, heaving herself to!

Had even another moderate sea swept up at this moment, the boat would
unquestionably have finished filling and foundered, but by some freak
of the storm, only a succession of lazy billows came rolling by until
with the boat half-emptied and higher in the water, De Long could get
out some oars to hold her steady the while he sent Görtz and Kaack
racing forward to clear away the wreckage.

Holding his cutter head on with oars and rudder while he finished
bailing and dragged in the impromptu sea anchor by the halliards, the
captain hastily made a drag of his sail only and an empty water breaker
to hold it up, and then rode the gale to that, taking in the oars and
raising the weathercloths again, while Erichsen, still clinging to the
tiller, steered into the wind and the rest of the crew bailed to keep
afloat.

For the men crowded in the boat, it was a night of utter misery and
terror, wet through, freezing in the gale, tossing madly in the cutter,
and with Collins slumped in the cockpit too weak or too heedless to
reach the rail, violently and continuously seasick to add the final
touch.

At midnight their sea anchor carried suddenly away and with it went the
sail. Instantly out went a pair of oars to hold her up, while another
drag, made of the broken mast and the rest of the oars, with the
expedition’s solitary pick-ax hung to it to hold it down, was sent out
over the bow. This proved a poor substitute for the sail, for having
insufficient surface, it failed to catch the water properly and rode
off the cutter’s beam, instead of ahead, with the result that the boat,
no longer bows-on to the waves, wallowed in the troughs and rolled
horribly, making water worse than ever.

After thirty-six hours of this torture, the gale finally abated,
and with only a fresh breeze and a heavy sea still running, De Long
prepared again to get underway, but he had no sail. Nindemann searched
the boat for substitutes; out of a hammock and the sledge cover, sewed
together by Görtz and Kaack, Nindemann provided a jury sail. The drag
was hauled in to recover the mast; with a chisel, Nindemann refitted
the broken end of the mast to its step, rerigged it, and soon with the
two insignificant bits of canvas spread at the yard, the first cutter
resumed her journey for the Lena Delta, making hardly one knot through
the water, and because the breeze had now hauled to the south, unable
to sail closer to the wind than a course due west instead of the
desired southwest.

But what the course should be to make Cape Barkin and where the boat
was, God alone knew. It was impossible to get a sight, and even had it
not been, De Long’s hands were so badly frozen he could not work his
sextant. So willy-nilly, the boat went west for two days with De Long
and his frozen crew, barely crawling along under the tiny jury rig,
till early on the morning of September 16th, having been four days at
sea since leaving Semenovski Island, the wind failed altogether, and
in a dead calm sea, De Long ordered out the oars and headed due south,
feeling that he had made more than enough westing.

By this time, from long-continued watchfulness and exposure, both De
Long’s hands and his feet were so badly frozen and had swollen to such
size that he was wholly unable to move himself. Tenderly Dr. Ambler got
out his soaked sleeping bag, and helped by Görtz, slipped the captain
into it and then propped him up in the sternsheets so he could see to
maneuver the boat.

After a few hours of rowing south, the water began to shoal rapidly and
the cutter ran into a skim of young ice, through which it broke its
way. Soon low-lying land was sighted to the south, undoubtedly some
part of the northern side of the Lena Delta. With redoubled energy the
men heaved with their cracked and bleeding hands at the oars, driving
through thickening ice toward the coast. A little to starboard an open
lead in the young ice was sighted, seemingly running inshore toward
a river mouth, and into this lead the boat was rammed through the
intervening ice, keeping on in this open water till at about 9 A.M.,
still more than a mile offshore, the boat grounded solidly in less than
two feet of water with new ice freezing constantly all about her in the
bitter cold.

After a fruitless effort to get inshore through the invisible shoals,
De Long tried to work out again to the northward, hoping then to go
further west and perhaps find a better channel into the river, which
so far as could be judged from the width between the headlands, seemed
to be one of the main northern mouths of the Lena. But the thickening
ice had closed in behind, and stuck fast in the hidden shoal, the boat
could be moved neither ahead nor astern with the oars.

De Long after a futile effort to push out, using the oars as poles,
became desperate.

“All hands over the side to lighten the boat!” he ordered. “We’ll push
her off!”

Silently, all except the helmsman, the men started to obey, but first
began to remove their wet boots, not wishing to fill them with mud.
Off came the worn and leaking footgear, exposing to view badly swollen
feet, many already black with frostbite and with blisters breaking as
the skin, stuck to the boots, tore away from the frozen flesh. Dr.
Ambler took one swift glance at them, then leaning over the helpless
captain, whispered in his ear. De Long bent forward, looked himself,
then said,

“Belay going over the side, men. Put on your boots. We’ll try shoving
her off again with the oars instead.”

But the enfeebled seamen had little luck. An all day struggle with the
shallow water moved the boat hardly a hundred yards, and night fell on
an exhausted boat crew, caught amidst ice and shoals, unable either to
get the cutter ashore or get it to sea.

Once more they spent a cheerless night in the cramped boat, tantalized
by that unapproachable shore a mile and a half away, unable to sleep,
wet, freezing, and thirsty on the crowded thwarts.

At daybreak, they tried again. Managing to get free of the ice and the
mud, they made a few yards, only to ground on another shoal. Getting
clear of that, the ice soon blocked them. It made little difference
which way they headed, north or south, east or west, shoals and young
ice were everywhere. Bitterly De Long looked from his heavy cutter and
his fast-fading men across a mile and a half of thin ice, strong enough
to block the boat, too weak to sustain a man, toward the low coast of
Siberia. It was three o’clock in the afternoon. He would never get the
boat free—eight hours of labor today on top of all of yesterday and no
progress made either toward shore or toward sea and nothing to look
forward to now except another terrible night in the boat in the fierce
cold.

De Long made up his mind. Regardless of their condition, they must
abandon the cutter, wade ashore. He still had two hours of daylight in
which to work, and despite frost-bitten feet, there was no alternative;
into that icy water they must plunge. But three of the men, Boyd,
Erichsen, and himself, hardly able to stand without toppling headlong,
could never make that mile and a half wading through ice and shoals to
the land. They would have to get the boat closer first.

“Except the sick and the doctor, all hands over the side! We’re going
to abandon the boat and wade ashore! Keep your boots on this time, men!”

Slowly the rest of the crew crawled over the side into the water,
finding it knee deep. Leaving in the boat only the four men and
Snoozer, and taking as heavy a load on his back as each could carry,
the crew set out for shore, Nindemann first to break a path through the
half inch ice, then in succession Kaack, Görtz, Iversen, Lee, Dressler,
Collins, Alexey, Noros, and finally Ah Sam, whose feet were in such bad
shape that not to impede the others he was ordered to go last. It was
hard work, especially for Nindemann smashing ahead through the ice,
with the chilly water changing irregularly in depth from knee deep to
over his waist, sinking unexpectedly into mudholes from which he could
hardly drag his feet, and all the while pounding away at the sheet ice
with hips and thighs, unable to use his arms because of the load on his
shoulders.

Finally the panting quartermaster reached the shore, a low and swampy
slope. Behind him trudged the others, and thankfully coming up out of
the sea, squeezing mud and slush from their boots at every step, they
dumped their loads on the beach. Siberia at last! A feeble cheer burst
from husky throats and cracking lips.

But looking round at that dismal shore, covered with snow, bare of
all vegetation, utterly desolate and devoid of any trace of human
habitation then or ever, it is doubtful that there could have been
found on earth any group of human beings save only these few who had
gone through hell on ice to reach that shore, who would not have cursed
instead of cheered at setting foot on that bleak tundra.




CHAPTER XXXV


“Come on, boys; we go back now for the rest of the load and the
captain,” ordered Nindemann, who with his rating of quartermaster was
senior in the group ashore. “Shake a leg; we got lots to do before dark
yet.”

“Yah,” said Iversen, plunging back in the sea, “frozen feet ban yust
too bad for any man. Ay tank ve better get it done qvick before yet it
gets colder!”

One by one, the men slipped back into the narrow lane broken through
the ice after Iversen and stolidly plodded off in the water toward the
distant boat, till only Ah Sam and Collins were left.

“Shake it up there, you fellers; we ain’t got much time,” growled
Nindemann.

“I’m ashore now and I’m going to stay ashore!” snarled Collins. “Do
you think you’re going to get me a mile out in the ocean again wading
through that mud and ice to drag in the captain and the dog? Well,
you’re not! I might for sick men, but not for them!”

“But the captain is sick! He can’t walk!” protested Nindemann. “And
besides, there’s all our food and the records to carry in yet!”

“Well, he can swim then for all I care!” replied Collins defiantly.
“And as for those records, carry ’em ashore yourself. I won’t; I didn’t
ship to be treated like a common sailor, and you can’t make me!”

“Suit yourself,” mumbled Nindemann uncertainly, for Collins was after
all an officer. He turned to the Chinese cook. “Get underway there, Ah
Sam.”

Poor Ah Sam, with his feet benumbed from constant immersion while
bailing, staggered toward the water, then collapsed in the mud, unable
to rise. The quartermaster dragged the inert Chinaman back on the beach
and deposited him at Collins’ feet.

“Get me a fire started here then, Collins, and see maybe if you can
thaw him out before I get back,” ordered Nindemann. “I’m going for the
captain,” and he plunged into the icy seas.

“Where’s Ah Sam and Mr. Collins?” asked De Long anxiously when
Nindemann, much behind the others, returned to the boat. “Anything
wrong?”

“They’re all played out,” lied Nindemann glibly. “So I left ’em to make
a fire for us when we got back ashore.”

“Poor devils!” muttered the captain sympathetically. “You should have
left somebody with ’em, Nindemann.”

“Oh, they’ll be all right soon,” Nindemann assured him. “Besides, I
needed here everybody,” and in that he was right enough for it took
three trips with the seamen slithering through mud and water to get
all the baggage ashore through that mile and a half of broken ice, and
it was completely dark when Nindemann at last gathered what crew he
had left round the lightened boat and attempted to work it ashore. But
even lightened to the utmost, with nothing but the three incapacitated
men and the doctor left in it, half a mile from the beach it stuck
finally in the mud and they could get it no further inshore. The wind
freshened, bringing a blinding snow-storm, blotting out everything. How
to get the invalids ashore was now a problem; in the slimy and uneven
footing through the shoal water they couldn’t safely be carried. There
being no other way, one after the other, Boyd, Erichsen, and De Long
were lifted over the side of the cutter by Dr. Ambler, and stood up in
the knee-deep water on their frozen legs. Then, each held from falling
by a seaman alongside, the three sufferers partly stumbled, were
partly dragged in the falling snow across that last half mile through
the broken lane of ice to the shore, while following them, Alexey,
the Indian hunter, with Snoozer over his shoulders, brought up the
procession, finally emptying the first cutter of its passengers.

It was eight at night and bitterly cold when De Long and his
companions, ashore at last on the desolate beach, joined his forlorn
seamen crowding round the fire which Collins had started and which
Noros and Görtz soon built up with driftwood into huge proportions—the
first bit of warmth the water-soaked men had felt in five days of
frigid Arctic weather. But it was of little comfort; beneath the snow
the ground was wet, and as the fire blazed up, it further softened the
beach roundabout it, so the men trying to dry themselves before the
fire soon found instead that they were sinking into the mushy tundra to
their knees.

“It’s no use, men. We might as well turn in. Pitch the tents,” ordered
De Long wearily, and soon the two tents were erected, a little shelter
at least from the cutting wind. On the soft and snow-covered ground
inside them, the wretched mariners stretched themselves out full
length, for the first time since leaving Semenovski Island, able at
least to turn in lying down.

More like stiffening corpses than sleepers, the exhausted men sprawled
out in the snow and soon as the driftwood fire died away, darkness
and falling snow enveloped the silent tents, while only the whistling
of the chilling wind kept watch over De Long and his thirteen worn
companions, stretched out at last on Siberian soil, victors in a heroic
retreat over ice and ocean to which the long annals of the sea, whether
in the tropics or round about the poles, offers no parallel.

Morning dawned; it snowed intermittently. Crawling from his tent, De
Long looked about. Nearby to the westward, flowing north to discharge
into the sea, was a wide river. From the chart, this was evidently the
River Osoktah, the main northern mouth of the Lena, and close at hand
should be Sagastyr with its signal tower and a busy trading village.
But with a sinking heart, De Long, looking over the snow-covered
tundra, saw that every evidence of civilization shown on his chart
was completely missing—no signal tower, no village, no signs of river
traffic on the Lena, not even the slightest sign of roving hunters!
Petermann’s vivid descriptions of traffic and of settlements at the
Lena mouth were only the idle dreams of an unreliable geographer, as
unreal as the Grecian myths of marvelous Atlantis to be found just
beyond the Pillars of Hercules!

On rescue at this point De Long had based all his plans, figured his
food supply, and savagely driven himself and his men far beyond human
endurance to get here. And now at this long-sought goal, plainly
evident to all hands, was nothing but disillusion and despair!

Hobbling about him, trying to dry themselves before a new fire, were
his worn and crippled companions, all hope gone from their haggard
faces, all strength gone from their frozen bodies, through bleared and
sunken eyes, watching him apathetically. De Long beckoned to Ambler.

“Do what you can for the men’s feet today, doctor, while I sort over
our stores. There’s no hope of assistance on the coast. We may as well
look this situation in the face, and prepare ourselves to walk inland
to the nearest settlement.”

“And where will that be?” asked the surgeon anxiously.

“At Ku Mark Surk, ninety-five miles to the southward,” replied De Long.

“Ninety-five miles!” repeated Ambler in dismay. “Why, some of these men
can’t walk even a mile!”

“They’ve got to now,” answered the captain grimly. “Get to work on our
feet, doctor. Our lives depend on them now. Tomorrow they’ve _got_ to
carry us along!”

“Aye, aye, sir. But ninety-five miles over this tundra! In our state
now, it’s worse than that drag over the pack. We’ll never get there!”

“Some of us may, and we’ll all try. It’s our last chance. And it’s up
to you, doctor. See what you can do to save our feet!”

All day on one man after another, Surgeon Ambler worked with lint,
with vaseline, and with his scalpel, opening blisters, cutting away
dead skin and flesh, gently massaging frozen feet and legs to restore
circulation, and finally bandaging up. When evening fell, De Long,
Boyd, and Ah Sam could hobble again. Even Erichsen, whom the long
motionless hours at the tiller during the storm at sea had left with
a far worse frostbite than anyone, whose two feet, stinking with
festering sores nauseated even the doctor as he worked on those
horribly swollen and blistered lumps from which protruded black and
feelingless toes, claimed to be improved and able to walk a little.

While this (during a storm of snow, hail and sleet) was going on, De
Long ordered a cache made on the beach of the navigating gear, most
of the cooking utensils, the sleeping bags, and other miscellaneous
articles, so that the baggage to be carried was reduced to the clothes
the men wore, the ship’s records, four rifles and ammunition, medicine
and surgical tools, blankets, tents, and their four days’ food supply,
consisting only of some tea and the unopened can of pemmican which
should have gone to Chipp.

Leaving a written record in the cache to direct anyone who might ever
come after, searching for them, on the early afternoon of September
19th, the ragged seamen shouldered their burdens and dragging the
expedition’s records on their little sledge, set out under a bright sun
over the snow-covered tundra for Ku Mark Surk, ninety-five long miles
to the south over the trackless delta.

It was a forlorn scene as De Long and his men took leave of the Polar
Sea which for two years had held them prisoner—to the west flowed
the Lena, a broad swift stream tumbling on its swirling bosom broken
floes from further up the frozen river; to the north spread the Arctic
Ocean, covered as far as eye could reach with young ice, through which,
sticking up gaunt and bare, the only objects visible on its desolate
surface, were the mast and the low gunwales of the abandoned cutter.
To east and south lay the flat snow-covered tundra, and over this
straggled the dismal caravan of the first cutter’s crew—Iversen and
Dressler dragging the sledge, Alexey out ahead to break a path, De Long
following him with the _Jeannette’s_ ensign in its oilskin case slung
across his back, and behind him the rest of the seamen staggering under
their loads, with Lee, whose weakened hips frequently gave way under
him, constantly falling in the snow, and Erichsen, Boyd, and Ah Sam
hobbling painfully along at the rear.

It was terrible going, not helped much by a fifteen minute pause
every hour for rest. The snow-covered ground was swampy, with many
ponds covered with thin ice and hidden under the snow, and into these
pitfalls the men stumbled frequently, burying themselves to their knees
in the mossy tundra beneath, and coming up with their leaking boots
or moccasins filled, to plunge along again through the snow and the
freezing wind, oozing a slimy mixture of mud and water from between
their toes at every step.

Big Erichsen could barely even hobble, hardly able to lift one numbed
foot after another. At the second stop for rest, Ambler drew Nindemann
aside,

“Quartermaster, can’t you make a pair of crutches for Erichsen? His
arms are still strong; with crutches, he’ll make out better.”

“Yah, doc, but with what should I make ’em?” asked Nindemann. “I ain’t
got tools no more.”

“Don’t worry over that, Nindemann,” replied the doctor. “You’ve got
a knife.” He opened his medicine chest on the sledge. “Here, take my
surgical saw; I guess if it’ll saw bones, it’ll saw wood all right,” he
finished grimly.

Nindemann got to work on some driftwood branches, and soon between
sheath knife and bone saw, he had fashioned a fair enough pair of
crutches, on which when the party resumed its journey, Erichsen swung
along haltingly behind the crippled Ah Sam.

But for the worn and burdened seamen, progress was still snail-like.
After another faltering advance, De Long halted the party and deciding
to lighten up still further, sent back Nindemann and two other seamen
with one tent, all the log books, the spyglass, and two tins of alcohol
to stow them with the abandoned gear in the cache at the beach. This
left to be carried or dragged by the men only De Long’s private
journals as a record of the expedition, one tent, some alcohol and
medicines, the rifles, a cooking pot, and what little food they still
had, together with the silk flag which De Long himself bore along.

The second day thus, the party staggered on four miles more to the
south. The going got worse, the straggling procession lengthened out in
the snow. A brief pause to rest, and all hands once more got underway
except Nindemann, whose load chafing his shoulders, stayed behind to
readjust it while the others started off through the snow. Having
eased the fastenings of his pack as well as possible, the wearied
quartermaster struggled to his feet and was hurrying forward to catch
up with his mates when unexpectedly he stumbled over what as he fell
he thought at first was a log half-hidden in the snowy path, but which
he quickly saw to be Erichsen, prone on his face, while nearby, tossed
into a drift, were his crude crutches!

With a thumping heart, Nindemann feverishly rolled his shipmate over
on his back expecting to have to revive him, only to find instead
Erichsen’s snow-flecked blue eyes staring bitterly at him, and
Erichsen’s broken voice rising in a curse,

“Go avay, damn you! Ay vant yust to die here in peace!”

“Get up, Hans!” pleaded Nindemann. “You’re not going to die; nobody is.
Here’s your crutches. Come along! I’ll help you!”

Erichsen only shook his head, his eyes rolling in anguish.

“No use, Nindemann, my feet ban all gone! Even if you can go so far as
Moscow, Ay tal you, Ay cannot go one step more! Go on! Let me die!”
and with a convulsive effort of his huge body, he twisted himself face
down again and clawing feebly with his fingers, tried to bury himself
completely in the snow.

Frightened, Nindemann jerked erect and shouted down the trail,

“Captain! Hey, captain! Come back!” but so far off were all hands
now that no one turned. Leaving his silent shipmate in the drift,
the quartermaster, going as fast as the broken path allowed, hurried
after them, shouting occasionally, till half a mile along he finally
attracted De Long’s attention and stopped him till he could catch up,
when he told the captain of Erichsen’s plight.

De Long gritted his teeth.

“Keep ahead, Nindemann, till you come to driftwood, then build a fire
quick and camp,” ordered De Long briefly. “Come on, doctor; we’ll go
back for Erichsen!”

Back rushed De Long and Ambler till buried in the snow as Nindemann
had left him, they found the prostrate Erichsen. With some difficulty,
Ambler turned him over, while De Long pulled his crutches out from
the deep snow alongside. The doctor took the broken seaman by both
shoulders and started to lift him.

“Let go me, doc,” begged Erichsen, “it ban no use any more to help. My
legs ban killing me. Ay vant now only to die qvick! Go avay!”

“_Get up, Erichsen!_” ordered De Long in a voice cold as steel. “Here’s
your crutches; take ’em and get going down that road! Do you think I’m
going to leave you now? Get underway! And when you can’t hobble, I’ll
drag you! Up now, before I jerk you up!”

For a moment, Erichsen, lying in the snow, stared dumbly into the
captain’s inflexible eyes, then his habit of obedience conquered his
suffering. Slowly he pushed himself into a sitting position and without
another word reached for the crutches. With Ambler’s assistance, he
rose to his feet and then with both De Long and the doctor behind him
to see that he did not again lie down, he hobbled off down the path,
each step undoubtedly an agony to him as his bleeding and tortured feet
came down in the snow. And so, slowly and painfully they covered the
last mile into the camp, where a roaring driftwood fire and a scanty
supper of cold pemmican and tea awaited them.

Before the fire, all hands steamed in front while they froze behind,
and then stretched out on driftwood logs for a bed, hauled their sole
remaining tent flat over the fourteen of them and turned in. But
between sharp winds, bitter cold, and falling snow, it was a fearful
night for the fourteen sufferers, shaking and shivering beneath the
thin canvas, and no one slept.

Through snow and fog again the party struggled southward along the
river bank next day, with Boyd and Ah Sam both improved, and even
Erichsen, the captain’s stern voice still ringing in his ears, doing a
little better on his crutches. But with only two days’ slim rations of
pemmican left, and with each day’s progress hardly a scant five miles
over the snowy tundra, the chances of making the remaining eighty miles
to Ku Mark Surk began to fade.

In the middle of the third afternoon, the party came to two abandoned
wood huts by the river side, the first evidence of habitation they had
met in the Lena Delta, and gladly all hands entered. Inside the huts,
reasonably sheltered for the first time in weeks from cold, from wind,
and from snow, and with plenty of driftwood about so they could warm
themselves at last, the men stripped off their soaked and ragged furs
and stood about naked while their clothes dried before the hurriedly
built fires.

Dressed again, and with a tiny portion of pemmican and some hot tea for
supper, the exhausted travelers threw themselves on the dirt floor,
at last to catch some sleep inside a human habitation, primitive even
though it was. No one any longer had a sleeping bag; only the patched
and ragged remnants of the fur and cloth garments and the long since
worn-out boots in which three months before they had started the
terrible journey over the ice from the sunken _Jeannette_ remained to
them. But at least there was a tight roof and solid walls about them
and it was enough. In a few minutes, at four o’clock in the afternoon,
thankful beyond description for so much shelter, all hands were sound
asleep.

But there was one exception. Shelter or no shelter, Erichsen, suffering
the agonies of the damned from his mortifying feet, only tossed
and moaned, waking the doctor. Rousing Nindemann to help him, the
surgeon seated the suffering seaman on a log before the fire, got his
instruments and medicines, and then, while Nindemann held the patient
erect on the log, gently proceeded to unbandage his left foot, the
worst one.

As the last turn of the bandage came off, Nindemann anxiously watching,
saw to his horror, all the flesh, dead and putrid, drop away from
the ball of the foot, exposing tendons and bones. Startled, he closed
his eyes, repressed a groan. But Ambler said nothing; only the slight
compression of his lips indicated his despair. There was nothing
medical skill could do. Quietly smearing a fresh bandage with vaseline,
he carefully bound up the foot again and put back Erichsen’s stocking
and his boot.

“All done, Erichsen,” he said reassuringly; “you can turn in now,” and
gathering up his equipment, Ambler, his heart torn by poor Erichsen’s
condition, hurriedly stretched himself out in the hut as far away as he
could get lest his patient should start to question him.

But Erichsen was not wholly ignorant of what had happened. Turning to
Nindemann on the log beside him, he asked,

“Do you know much about frostbites?”

“Yah, Hans,” replied Nindemann, “at the first coming on, the flesh
turns blue and then it gets black.”

The big Dane nodded, continued sadly,

“Ven doc took off the bandage, Ay saw somet’ing drop from unter my
foot. You saw it too, Nindemann. Yah?”

Nindemann, with one arm about his suffering shipmate to keep him erect,
looked him squarely in the eye, and putting all the conviction into his
voice that he could muster, he lied heroically,

“No, Hans, there was nothing. You must be dreaming things.”

“Don’t try to fool me, qvartermaster; Ay tal you Ay saw it und so did
you.” Mournfully he gazed at his shabby boot, then sadly shook his
head. “Ay hope you get home yet, Nindemann, but vit me, it ban all
done. Stretch me out now; you must sleep.”

But it being still early in the evening, after a brief nap, De Long
sent Alexey and Nindemann out with rifles to hunt, the while the
others rested and he took stock of the situation.

Long and earnestly, as the two hunters trudged outside through the
snow looking for game, the captain pondered. His recent chart, based
on Petermann’s reports and descriptions of the villages on the delta
itself, he now knew was worthless; only in the old Russian chart
showing Ku Mark Surk at the head of the delta and Bulun beyond could
he put any faith. But with the nearest of these over eighty miles
distant, it was hopeless to expect that his crawling party, making at
best five miles a day, could ever get through on the two days’ pemmican
still left. And without food to sustain them on the way, the outside
temperature, hovering around zero, would of itself in a few more nights
in the open like the preceding one, quickly make an end of them. There
seemed nothing for it except to stay in the huts where at least they
had shelter and warmth and stretch to the utmost their few pounds of
pemmican, eked out by poor Snoozer as a last resort, the while he sent
two men ahead on a forced march to Ku Mark Surk in the thin hope that
he might keep his starving men alive till they returned with aid, in
two weeks at the soonest if they found the traveling good, longer if
they did not.

What alternatives were there? He considered them. Erichsen, Lee, Boyd,
and Ah Sam were his drags on progress, especially the two former. If he
left these two, the others might easily double their speed of travel
and reach Ku Mark Surk and safety in possibly a week. But it would take
at least a second week to get help back to his abandoned men. How could
two helpless cripples without food, hardly able to crawl outside to
gather wood to warm themselves, stay alive for two long weeks, perhaps
more? They would soon, hopeless in the feeling that they were deserted,
both lie down and die. As it was, only his constant driving, his
apparently soulless harshness, and the lash of his stinging commands,
kept them hobbling weakly along.

Could he abandon them? Dispassionately he tried to consider it. On one
hand, a far better chance for life to twelve men, certain death for
two. On the other hand, the strong probability that all would perish in
that hut before relief arrived. Going on, leaving his cripples behind,
looked logical. But De Long shook his head. While he lived, he could
abandon nobody to the loneliness of that Arctic waste, least of all
the heroic Erichsen, who unrelieved through that terrible night in the
boat, had clung to the tiller, safely steering them all through the
gale, and now in the agony of his decaying feet, was uncomplainingly
paying the penalty of his steadfastness. With a sigh, the captain
decided to stay on in the hut, while he sent ahead for help. Who should
go? Running over in his mind the physical condition of his men, he
decided on Surgeon Ambler and Nindemann, the two he felt who were most
likely to get through.

At six o’clock, Nindemann returned, empty-handed except for a dead
gull he had found. Eagerly the hungry seamen, roused by Nindemann’s
entrance, crowded round while Ah Sam plucked the gull, only to discover
that the carcass had long since rotted. Sadly it was thrown away, and
the disappointed sailors once more turned in. Alexey still was missing,
but no fears were felt for him, and quickly, without exception now, the
exhausted company sank into deep slumber.

About nine o’clock came a knock on the door of the hut and Alexey’s
voice rang out,

“All sleep here?”

Immediately, sleeping heads lifted here and there over the floor as the
door flew back and Alexey cried proudly,

“Captain! I shoot two reindeer!” and in staggered the snow-covered
hunter bearing on his back the hind quarter of a doe.

“Well done, Alexey!” shouted the captain, leaping to his feet and
kissing the startled Indian while all about men sprang up, almost
smothering the beaming Alexey in handclasps and in clumsy hugs.
Immediately sleep was forgotten, the fires poked up, and that haunch of
venison, cut in chunks, was roasting on a dozen sticks. Each man got
a pound and a half; most of them, long before their meat was hardly
more than seared before the fire, were gorging themselves on the raw
flesh! With startling rapidity, it disappeared and hungrily his men
looked toward the bloody remnant of that haunch, but De Long, stowing
it behind him in the hut, shook his head and ended the feast, leaving
the party no option but to return to sleep, while only Snoozer, still
gnawing wolfishly at the shank bone, remained awake.

That changed De Long’s plans. Issuing only a very scanty ration of
pemmican for breakfast, he sent Alexey and six men out in the morning
to get the deer, while he concluded to spend that day and the next in
the hut, recuperating the sick, and then with his two days’ supply of
pemmican still intact and the remainder of the two does for food on the
journey, push on southward with all hands.

And so they did. Warmed by soup made of the reindeer bones, fortified
by deer meat, and rested by two days’ inaction in the hut, the party
set out hopefully on September 24th with twenty pounds of pemmican and
fifty-four pounds of venison still left for food for fourteen men and
their dog, leaving a note and the captain’s Winchester rifle (for which
there was no longer any ammunition) as a record behind them.

They tramped along the east bank of the river for three miles, resting
hourly and making poor progress. Looking hopelessly at the broad stream
still flowing unfrozen past him, De Long sighed for his abandoned
cutter, in which here with oars and sail, they might make fine
progress even against the current. But the cutter was gone and wishes
would do no good. However, they might perhaps make a raft and sail or
pole that upstream, at least relieving their feet. So stopping the
party, De Long turned all hands to gathering logs out of which, using
the sledge lashing for a fastening, a crude raft was finally fashioned
at the cost of eight hours’ strenuous toil, on which at five p.m. they
attempted to embark. But the river had ebbed meanwhile, and in spite
of an hour’s battle, it was impossible to get the grounded side of the
raft afloat. In deep disgust, amid the suppressed curses of all hands
at the result (and especially of Nindemann who had done most of the
work), the raft was abandoned, the loads picked up again, and the men,
doubly weary now, staggered away southward, again to camp for the night
on the open tundra, freezing on a few logs spread in the snow for a
bed, to rise next morning after no sleep at all, stiffer and sorer even
than the night before.

The next day’s traveling was difficult beyond words, over snow and thin
ice through which torn boots broke, to come up covered with a slushy
mixture which immediately froze solid, soon making each man’s feet
as large and as heavy as sandbags, a gruelling task to lift them, an
endless labor to keep them reasonably cleared.

By some miscalculation either in issue or in original weighing, but
eight pounds of deer meat was found remaining, all of which went
for dinner. An afternoon of heartbreaking travel over an ice-coated
bluff from which the piercing wind had cleared all snow, leaving it
slippery as glass, brought them at night to a dilapidated hut, filthy
in its interior, but nevertheless the freezing seamen, taking it for a
godsend, stretched themselves promptly in the dirt inside, unutterably
grateful for the shelter. A scant portion of pemmican passed for
supper. With only three similar rations apiece left as the total
food supply, the toil-worn men turned in, grumbling audibly for the
immediate issue of the remnant of the pemmican and De Long began to
fear open rebellion.

Day broke inauspiciously. Before them, blocking the way, was a swift
side stream, too deep to ford, with ice too thin to walk upon. De
Long, after examining all possibilities of crossing, ordered Nindemann
to build a raft to ferry over on, and Nindemann, tired, hungry and
bitter over the fiasco attending the raft of a few days before, went
grumblingly at it. While he and his shipmates struggled with the logs
and the single line they had for a lashing, De Long silently ignoring
the none too well hidden signs of growing disaffection went back to the
hut. Outside the door, Ambler met him, pulled him aside,

“Erichsen’s condition is getting desperate, captain. Both feet are
worse; another couple of days and nothing in God’s world can keep him
on them.”

“All right, doctor. We’ll do the best we can,” said De Long resolutely.
“Keep him going to the last minute, then we’ll drag him. Meanwhile, I’d
better keep an eye on the work on that raft.”

By ten a.m. the raft was done, a crazy affair and not very large due
to the lack of sufficient lashings. With Collins, Alexey and Lee as
passengers, and Nindemann and Kaack as ferrymen, it started over, amid
voluble cursing promptly submerging all hands to their knees. But
nevertheless it got successfully over to shoal water on the other side,
where Nindemann started to look for a good landing spot.

“Don’t waste time!” shouted De Long. “Let those men wade ashore and
hurry back with that raft!”

After considerable growling, audible even to De Long on the other
shore, the passengers waded off, and the two ferrymen paddled back. On
his return, Nindemann promptly started grumbling again about the raft.

“What’s the matter, Nindemann?” asked De Long.

“The lashings are loose and there ain’t enough logs to float it,” said
Nindemann sullenly.

“Well, you made the raft. Haul the lashing tighter then if it doesn’t
suit you,” suggested the captain.

“But I hauled it already as tight as I could,” protested the irritated
quartermaster.

“That’ll do!” Curtly De Long cut him short. “Get more logs if you want
them; tighten the lashing if you wish, but quit standing there! I’ve
had enough of your grumbling! Shake it up, now! We’ve got to get on!”

Glowering at the reproof, Nindemann, his nerves finally at the breaking
point, glared a moment at the skipper, then turned and moved down the
bank. A few steps off, facing the next gang of men waiting to cross
on the raft, the stocky quartermaster clenched his fists, swung them
wildly in the captain’s direction and shouted,

“I would sooner be along with the devil than be along with you! I wish
I was in hell, or somewhere else than here, by Jesus Christ!”

Quietly De Long looked from the little knot of men on the raft to
Nindemann’s circling fists, then in an icy voice, he ordered,

“Nindemann! Come back here!”

Slowly the infuriated quartermaster approached his captain, to find a
pair of cold blue eyes drilling into him.

“So you’d sooner be shipmates with the devil than with me, eh? You’ll
find yourself in hell quick enough if you don’t do what I say! What’s
the matter now?”

Nindemann quailed, his mutinous passion suddenly chilling before that
frigid gaze.

“Nothing at all, sir,” he mumbled weakly.

“Another word from you and I’ll have you courtmartialed!” said De Long
coldly. “Now get up into that hut and consider yourself under arrest
until I send for you!”

“Very well, sir,” answered Nindemann, and meekly he scrambled up the
bluff to the hut, while the captain looked down at the men milling
round on the raft.

“Görtz! Lend Kaack a hand with those paddles! Shove off now!”

“Aye, aye, sir!” Immediately the raft started its second trip.

It was slow work. Not till three in the afternoon was the raft ready
for the last load. Then sending Erichsen down first, De Long peered
into the hut at Nindemann crouching before the fire.

“Pick up your traps, quartermaster, and get to work again!”

“Aye, aye, sir!” said Nindemann obediently, and hastily gathering up
his load, he ran down to the raft where for the last trip he paddled
over and then, dismantling the logs to recover the priceless lashings,
he looked expectantly up to the captain for orders.

“Build a fire,” said the skipper briefly. “We’ll have dinner here and
dry ourselves before moving on.”

They made four miles by dark, camped in the snow, froze as usual
instead of sleeping, ate a skimpy breakfast, and with but a single
meal left, the party was about to break camp, when far away Nindemann
spotted some reindeer approaching the river. Keeping everybody down,
the captain sent Alexey and Nindemann out with rifles.

Circling three miles to get to leeward of the small herd of reindeer,
the two hunters crawled cautiously along on their stomachs another
quarter mile, pausing, with their very lives depending on their care,
each time a deer looked in their direction, then snaking along again
through the snow. At last, within a hundred yards, they stopped, picked
out the two largest bucks they could see, and at a word from Alexey,
fired simultaneously.

Down went the buck at which Alexey’s Remington was aiming, but
Nindemann’s Winchester misfired and before Alexey could get in another
shot, the startled herd was off. Firing nevertheless, Alexey swung to
the moving targets, but failed to hit again. Leaping up, the two men
ran in to secure their prize and saw joyfully that Alexey had knocked
over a fine buck, as large as both the does which he had previously
shot. It took five men to drag him in to camp, and there, all thought
of movement suspended, the ravenous men turned to on frying deer meat,
gulping down three pounds apiece before the captain finally called a
halt on eating, and ordering his crew to shoulder the remainder of the
buck, provisions for three days more, they got underway again in the
teeth of a driving snow-storm.

By the next afternoon, September 28th, having spent the previous
night again in the snow, De Long came to an empty hut on a promontory
and looking off ahead, found himself trapped! On his right, running
north was the Lena; before him, running east, was another broad river
branching away from it and neither one could he ford, nor after a
diligent search, find any materials about of which to make a raft.
Huddled in the dirty hut, his utterly tired men sprawled out before the
fire, while Alexey scouted the river to the eastward for a ford, but
found none.

For three days, the ill-fated refugees were forced to remain in that
hut, unable to move in any direction except back northward, while a
gale outside brought heavy snow; and bitterly cursing their enforced
inaction while consuming their precious provisions, they waited,
hopeless of movement till in the increasing cold, the river should
freeze hard enough for them to cross. And meanwhile, fearing Erichsen
would get lockjaw if he waited further, Dr. Ambler was forced to
amputate first all his toes and then saw away a good part of the
remainder of the unfortunate Dane’s feet, leaving him with useless
stumps on which it was hopeless to expect, even with crutches, that
Hans Erichsen would ever walk again.

The captain became desperate. He cut the issue of deer meat down
to the limit, sent Alexey out in the blinding snow to hunt in one
direction, Nindemann in another, and Görtz and Kaack with fish lines
to see whether the rivers which were choking off their progress, might
at least yield up a few fish to eke out their provisions. But except
for one gull which Alexey knocked off a pole with a rifle ball, not a
solitary bit of food did anyone get.

Meanwhile, the problem of how to move Erichsen became acute. Finding a
solitary driftwood plank, six inches thick and about four feet long,
Nindemann was turned to with a hatchet and the doctor’s saw (which but
a few hours before had been used on Erichsen’s feet) to make a sledge
on which to haul him, and by the night of September 30th, it was done.

October 1st came and the Arctic winter descended on them in earnest.
After a bitterly cold night, they issued from the hut to find the Lena
apparently frozen from bank to bank. Cautiously, with the thin ice
cracking ominously beneath them at each step, Alexey and Nindemann
scouted a path across, then one by one, with the men widely separated,
to distribute the weight, the others crawled over, last of all Erichsen
on his sledge drawn by two men some distance apart hauling on a long
line.

With all hands finally on the west bank without mishap, the party
turned south and for three days struggled on through increasingly
bitter cold, never finding any shelter, sometimes traveling on
through the night because that was less of a torture than freezing
while stretched out in the snowdrifts. The delta became a maze of
intersecting streams among which De Long was wholly unable to locate
his position on his useless charts. And a new horror was added to
their others—Erichsen became delirious and each time the shivering
men halted, he raved incessantly in Danish and English, making sleep
impossible even had the frigid nights otherwise permitted it. And then
the food (except for tea) gave out completely, first the remaining
scraps of reindeer going; finally the last hoarded bits of the pemmican
(which for nearly four months they had dragged with them from the
_Jeannette_) went for dinner on October 3rd.

Without food the party staggered on from their dinner camp, De Long
praying earnestly that some game might by a miracle again cross their
path. But they saw none, and weak with hunger dragged their ice-clogged
feet along, skirting the thin ice on the river edge where the going was
easier than on the mossy snow-covered tundra. Suddenly De Long broke
through and went into the river up to his shoulders; while he was being
hauled out, Görtz plunged through to his neck and Collins was soused
to his waist. A moment after they had been dragged back to the surface
soaked to their skins, each was a glistening sheet of ice, with no help
for it but to keep hobbling onward till evening, when still in the
open, they camped by the river bank and, in the midst of a whistling
gale of wind and snow they huddled round a driftwood fire where the
ice-coated sufferers endeavored vainly to thaw themselves out.

There was nothing left for food for the wan and hungry crew—except
Snoozer. De Long, hoping to take at least this favorite dog back home
with him, had clung tenaciously to Snoozer through thick and thin, kept
him in the boat when the other dogs ran off at Bennett Island, saved
him when the other seamen would have left him to starve or drown in the
abandoned cutter off the Siberian coast, fed him from his vanishing
store of pemmican when he had little enough to eat himself. But now
with his men starving about him, desperately needing food if they
were to hold a little life in their chilling bodies, sentiment and
affection had to give way. Sadly he called over Boyd and Iversen, told
them to take Snoozer where no one could see them, kill him, and dress
the carcass.

So for supper each had a little dog meat, eaten with revulsion by
everyone, but eaten. And then followed a night horrible beyond
description. Erichsen’s ravings mingled with the whistling of the
wind; in the sub-zero blackness, the stupefied men, unsheltered from
the driving snow, crouched about a fire from which they could get no
warmth; in his wet and freezing garments, De Long huddled alongside
Alexey to keep from freezing to death; while all about, shivering limbs
and chattering teeth beat a gruesome accompaniment to Erichsen’s groans
as lashed to his sledge, as close to the fire as they dared put him, he
alternately shrieked and moaned in delirium till finally he lapsed into
a coma.

Morning came at last, to bring the unpleasant discovery that Erichsen
had somehow worked off his mittens during the night and both his hands
were completely frozen, through and through. The doctor set Boyd and
Iversen to work chafing his fingers and palms, endeavoring to restore
the circulation, but it proved hopeless. Erichsen was now totally
unconscious.

Meanwhile Alexey had spied a hut a few miles off, and after a hastily
swallowed cup of tea which constituted breakfast, the men hurriedly
shouldered their burdens and dragging their unfortunate shipmate, moved
off toward it, fumbling along through the driving snow and the intense
cold for two hours, when, fervently thanking God for the shelter, they
reached the hut and building a fire inside, proceeded to get warm for
the first time in four days.

Here after a brief prayer for the unconscious Dane, read in a broken
voice by the captain, the entire party (except Alexey) sank to the
floor to rest at last. Alexey refused to rest. He had shipped for the
cruise, not as a seaman but as a hunter, and now with his captain and
his mates urgently needing food, regardless of himself, he went out to
seek it. But there was not the slightest sign of game about, and frozen
worse than ever from having broken through the river ice on his hunt,
the faithful Indian was at last compelled to return empty-handed.

Supper, half a pound of dog meat apiece, and the last of the tea, was
the only meal for the day, but grateful to be out of the blizzard
raging roundabout, no one complained.

October 5th came and went, commencing in a breakfast consisting only
of hot water colored by re-used tea leaves and ending with a supper
composed of the last of the dog meat and more hot water barely tinted
with third-time used tea leaves. Hour by hour the men sat, crowded in
the little hut gazing at Erichsen, occasionally conscious now, while
his strength slowly ebbed away and his tongue babbled feebly about his
far-off Denmark. Night fell, the storm howled on, the dying seaman
relapsed again into a coma, and his overwrought shipmates sagged down
on the dirt floor to rest.

October 6th came and in the early morning light, Erichsen died. Sadly
in the driving snow, the grief-stricken sailors gathered round a hole
cut through the river ice while broken-hearted, De Long sobbed out the
funeral service over the body of as brave and staunch a seaman as ever
sacrificed his life to save his shipmates. And there in the Arctic
wastes, where he so long had suffered, with three volleys from all
the rifles in the party ringing out over the ice as a final salute,
mournfully his gaunt and frozen comrades consigned Hans Erichsen, their
strongest and their best man, to the Lena’s waters.




CHAPTER XXXVI


With some old tea leaves and two quarts of grain alcohol as their
entire food supply, the thirteen survivors gloomily resumed their
southward trek on October 7th. The snow was deep and still falling;
the weakened men ploughed through it to their waists. A little alcohol
mixed in water constituted dinner; a little more of the same was served
out for supper and night found them camping in the snow.

October 8th, underway again over thin ice, De Long sought a trail over
the wandering streams and through the multitude of islands where the
spreading Lena flattened out over the low delta lands and its surface
waters, churning in swirling eddies, were not yet completely frozen
over. More and more frequently the faltering men paused to rest; De
Long particularly, whose freezing immersion of a few days before had
sadly damaged his feet, was in worse condition than anyone save Lee,
whose weakening hips continually gave way, plunging him drunkenly into
the drifts every other step. Badly strung out, the line of starving
seamen staggered along with their captain in the rear, constantly
refusing the offers of his men to relieve him of the load he carried
and thus ease the way for him. When finally they halted for the night,
shelterless on the bleak and open tundra, his hungry men had once
again to be content with nothing more substantial to fill the aching
voids in their stomachs than hot water and half an ounce of alcohol.
De Long, watching them drop feebly in their tracks in the snow with Ku
Mark Surk still (as he thought) over twelve miles away, concluded sadly
that they could never all cover that last stretch alive. Without the
slightest chance now of getting food in the deserted delta, they would
soon in their weakened condition use up the last dregs of their fading
vitality and quickly freeze to death in their tracks. His only hope lay
in sending a few stronger men ahead for help, while in some shelter,
if they could find it now, the rest of them, fighting off starvation,
conserved their little remaining strength and awaited rescue. With that
resolve, he beckoned Nindemann to his side in the snow.

“Nindemann,” said the captain earnestly, “I’m sending you ahead
tomorrow to get through to Ku Mark Surk for aid. It should be only
twelve miles south now. You ought to do it in three days, maybe four at
the most, and get back in four more. Meanwhile, we’ll follow in your
trail. I’ll give you one of our two rifles, your share of the alcohol
for food, and you can take any man in the party with you except Alexey
to help you out. Alexey we must keep as a hunter. Who do you want?”

The quartermaster thought a moment, then answered,

“I’ll take Noros, captain.”

“Isn’t Iversen better?” asked De Long anxiously. “I think he’s
stronger.”

“No,” replied Nindemann, “he’s been complaining of his feet three days
now.”

“That’s right, captain,” broke in Dr. Ambler who was alongside the
skipper. “Noros is best.”

“All right; Noros then. Be ready, both of you in the morning.” Stiffly
De Long stretched himself out before the tiny camp fire crackling
feebly in the snow.

Morning found thirteen somber seamen looking anxiously off over the
frozen tangle of rivers and of islands to the south. Somewhere there
beyond that terrible delta land lay Ku Mark Surk and life, but all
about them was only the vast snow-crusted tundra, an Arctic waste of
wintry desolation and the promise of slow death. Solemnly De Long
shook Nindemann’s hand.

“You’ll do all a man can do to get us help, I know, Nindemann,” he
said. “God keep you safe and bring you soon again to us.”

“I ain’t got much hope of finding help, captain,” responded the
quartermaster gloomily. “It’s farther maybe to Ku Mark Surk than you
think.”

“Well, do the best you can. If you find assistance, come back to us
as quickly as possible. God knows we need it here! If you don’t—” The
captain’s voice broke at that implication, he paused a moment, then
concluded huskily, “Why then you’re still as well off as we; you see
the condition we are in.” He turned to Nindemann’s companion, standing
in the snow beside him,

“Noros, are you ready?”

“Yes, captain.”

De Long looked them over. They carried nothing but one rifle, forty
cartridges, and a small rubber bag with three ounces of alcohol, their
share of the party’s sole remaining substitute for food. Their clothes
were ragged, their sealskin trousers bare of fur, their boots full of
holes. The captain’s eyes lingered on the toes protruding from the
remnants of their footgear.

“Don’t wade in the river, men. Keep on the banks,” he finished gently.

There was a bustling in the little knot of men surrounding them, and
Collins suddenly pushed through to confront De Long.

“I’m the _New York Herald_ correspondent with this expedition,” he said
bruskly. “As James Gordon Bennett’s representative, I demand the right
to go with these men!”

De Long, surprised at the interruption, flushed slightly, then answered
evenly,

“Mr. Collins, we’ll settle that question with Mr. Bennett in New York.
At present, getting you or anybody through as a newspaper correspondent
interests me very little. And in any other capacity, just now you’re
only a hindrance to this expedition; you’re much too weak to keep up
with Nindemann. You wouldn’t last five miles!” and turning his back on
Collins, he gripped Noros’ hand, shook it warmly, and repeated,

“Remember, Noros. Keep out of the water! That’s all. Shove off now,
men!”

Bending forward against the wind, Noros and Nindemann staggered away
toward the south, the last forlorn hope of the eleven emaciated
castaways standing in the frozen drifts behind them, cheering them as
they vanished in the blinding snow.




CHAPTER XXXVII


“And that was on October 9th, Mr. Melville,” sobbed Nindemann. “But Ku
Mark Surk wasn’t twelve miles away like the captain thought; it was
over seventy miles! His chart was bad, and besides before, every day he
hadn’t traveled so far as he guessed maybe. For ten whole days after
that, Noros and me went south over terrible country, and we found to
eat only one ptarmigan I shot with the rifle, and we ate up first our
boot soles and then most of our sealskin pants and we froze and kept
on going till even the sealskin pants was all gone and we had traveled
over forty miles and still we had not come to Ku Mark Surk. And all the
while we dragged ourselves along because we knew our shipmates could
get no food in that country we had gone over and they were starving and
the captain trusted Noros and me to get help for them.

“But after ten days we were freezing in only our underwear for clothes
and we were so weak without food that we could not go on and when we
saw at last an empty hut, we crawled inside there to die but we found
in it a little rotten dried fish that looked like sawdust and tasted
like it too and we ate that, thinking maybe then we could keep on
again but the mouldy fish made us so sick with dysentery we could not
even any more crawl, and we lay there three days expecting only to die
soon, when at last some natives looked in that hut and found us! We
would be dead there in that hut long ago if not for them!” Nindemann
choked back a bitter sob and gripped my hand feebly. “We couldn’t make
them natives understand they had to go back north for the captain and
they brought us first to Ku Mark Surk and then here to Bulun. And now
it is November 2nd, eleven more days even since they found us, and
there is no hope for anybody any more! The captain and our shipmates
must now all be dead in that snow!” And racked with sobs at the idea
that somehow he had failed in the captain’s trust, Nindemann wept
hysterically.

“Perhaps they found shelter in a hut,” I suggested, trying to calm him.
“I’ll start back right now to look anyway.”

“No use,” repeated the quartermaster hopelessly. “For a long ways
from where we left them, there ain’t no huts, only a hundred rivers
going every way and for a man twice to find the same spot there is
impossible. You ain’t so strong no more. You’ll only die yourself!”

I laid the weeping seaman back on his couch. Probably he was right. But
so long as the faintest shred of hope existed for Captain De Long and
his comrades, I must look for them.

I got the best directions I could from Noros and from Nindemann as to
the route south they had traveled, where they had stopped each night,
the rivers they had crossed. Taking either man with me as a guide was
impossible; they could not travel. So leaving instructions for my
whaleboat party that, except for Bartlett (who was to stay in Bulun
to search for me if in a month I did not return), all the others on
arrival there were to proceed under Lieutenant Danenhower’s charge
south to Yakutsk, I got a dog sled and immediately started north. At
Ku Mark Surk I met the Russian Commandant next day; he helped me with
another dog team and a ten day supply of fish. With that I proceeded
northward along Nindemann’s trail from Ku Mark Surk, having two native
drivers and twenty-two dogs.

Through fierce November storms we pushed on down the delta, sometimes
finding Nindemann’s trail, often losing it. The going was slow, the
cold was intense, we were frequently stopped by gales which completely
blinded us and against which the dogs refused to travel, instead lying
down in the snow and howling dolefully. The river began to divide as
it spread out over the flat and treeless delta. One after another I
searched along innumerable streams for Nindemann’s trail but in the
deepening snows found no sign as we went north. Wrapped in thick furs,
I nevertheless nearly froze to death on my sledge. It was inconceivable
that De Long and his companions, long without food, clothed only in
scanty rags, could live through such weather. But still I searched,
hopeful now at least of recovering their bodies.

Our food gave out, the Yakut drivers wanted to return to Ku Mark Surk.
I enquired if there were any village on the delta itself from which
we might continue our search. They said there was one. On the far
northwestern corner of the delta on the Arctic shore, some thirty miles
due west of where from Nindemann’s account De Long had landed on the
coast, was a small village called Tomat. I looked at my chart, a copy
I had long ago made at Semenovski Island of De Long’s. There was no
village marked there on that chart, but knowing now the chart to be
wholly unreliable, I accepted my drivers’ statements as being true and
ordered them to head for Tomat to replenish our food supply, intending
then to pick up De Long’s trail at the abandoned boat, and follow him
southward from there till I came upon his party, whether alive or dead.
But my drivers protested; we must turn about and return to Ku Mark
Surk; without food, we would all perish on the desolate road to Tomat.
Fiercely I turned on them in their native tongue.

“Head north!” I ordered savagely. “And when we have to, we’ll eat the
dogs! And when they’re gone, by God, I’ll eat you if necessary to get
north to Tomat! Keep on north!”

Cowed by my threats, and thoroughly believing that this wild stranger
from the sea might well turn cannibal, the dog drivers headed northwest
toward Tomat, the solitary village on that northern Arctic coast. For
three days our laboring dogs dragged us through the drifts along the
road to Tomat, fortunately for us following a chain of deserted huts
in each of which we found refuse scraps of fish heads, entrails of
reindeer, and such similar offal, the which we (both men and dogs) ate
greedily to save us from starvation, and on the fourth day, so frozen
that I had to be carried from my sledge into a hut, we arrived at Tomat.

Staying there only a day to thaw out, to change my dogs for fresh ones,
and to replenish my food supply (in that poor village, itself facing
the winter with scanty food, getting each solitary fish was harder
indeed than extracting from the villagers their teeth), I started east
along the Arctic coast, with my feet so badly frozen I could not walk.

By evening, marked by a pole, I found the cache De Long had left
on the beach but so thick was the falling snow I could not see the
first cutter offshore. Salvaging the log books and the _Jeannette’s_
navigating outfit, I loaded them on my sledges and turned south till I
came on the first hut where De Long had stopped. For a week after, amid
frigid Arctic gales with the temperature far below zero, I searched
along the solidly frozen Lena, visiting every hut, finishing finally
in that hut on the promontory where for three days De Long had waited
for the rivers to freeze so he might cross, and where Dr. Ambler had
sliced off Erichsen’s toes. There beyond the frozen river, on the
wind-swept further shore, for a short distance I could follow where his
toiling shipmates had dragged Erichsen along on his sledge, for the
deep grooves left in the soft slush a month and a half before now stood
clearly out in solid ice.

But there finally I lost the trail. The deep drifts of many snows
buried all tracks. Facing a myriad of wandering streams, any one
of which De Long might have followed south, I searched in vain for
further tracks, for the hut in which Erichsen had finally died, for
the epitaph board which Nindemann told me he had left there to mark
it, but not another trace of De Long or of his party could I find in
the ever-thickening snow as storm succeeded storm and buried the Lena
Delta in drifts so deep that my floundering dogs could scarcely drag me
through them.

It was now late November, six wintry weeks since without food and
without shelter, De Long had parted somewhere thereabouts in that
ghastly wilderness from his two messengers. Only one of two things now
was possible—either De Long and his party had somehow been found by
natives who were sheltering him, quite as safe as I myself; or he had
long since perished and was somewhere buried beneath the snowdrifts on
the open tundra, where in the dead of winter it was hopeless to search
for him. Weak and frozen myself from my desperate search, coming on top
of my long exposure in the open whaleboat, it was now imperative that
I get out of the delta before my frozen corpse found an unmarked grave
beneath the snows alongside my missing shipmates. So sadly I ordered
my worn dogs south. It took us a week to fight our way back to Ku Mark
Surk at the delta head, and two days more to cover the final fearful
miles along the Lena through the mountain gorges up to Bulun, where
at last at the end of November I arrived, sick at heart at my failure
to find my comrades, terribly sick physically from rotten food, from
hunger, and with numbed limbs from which the Arctic cold had drained
away every vestige of life.




CHAPTER XXXVIII


All winter long, while endeavoring to recuperate my frozen arms and
legs, I gathered supplies and sledges from Bulun, from far-off Yakutsk,
from all the villages between, for an intensive search of the delta in
early March before the annual springtime freshets, feeding the Lena
with the melting snows of southern Siberia, should come pouring out on
the flat delta, burying it in a flood of raging waters and sweeping my
shipmates out into the Arctic Sea.

I kept only Nindemann, now recovered, and Bartlett with me to help
me in my search. All the remaining survivors, a pitiful party, under
Lieutenant Danenhower’s charge, went south over the fifteen hundred
mile trail to Irkutsk. Poor Aneguin, weakened by exposure, died before
he got out of Siberia; Jack Cole, violently insane, reached America
only to die soon after in a government asylum; and Danenhower himself,
broken in health, after a few brief years spent undergoing a long
series of operations, soon followed him to the grave. The rest except
for Leach, whose toes had to be amputated, reached America safe and
sound. Meanwhile by courier from Bulun to Irkutsk, the head of the
telegraph lines in Siberia, the news of the disaster to the _Jeannette_
finally went out on December 21.

For two and a half years not a word of us had ever reached
civilization. As the months since our departure lengthened into years
and no news came, anxiety in America and in Europe over our fate
deepened into keen alarm. Swallowed by the trackless Arctic, fear for
us grew, and in the summer of 1881, two relief expeditions fitted out
by the American government went north to search for us. But where
should they look? Which way did the polar currents go from Behring
Strait where we had entered? No one knew save we on the _Jeannette_ and
our knowledge was useless to a world facing a search of the unknown
north.

One expedition in the Revenue Cutter _Corwin_, searched for us
fruitlessly off Wrangel Land but not daring to enter the ice, found no
trace. A second expedition, in the U.S.S. _Alliance_, thinking perhaps
we might have drifted east over North America and come out beyond
Greenland into the Atlantic, searched during the whole summer the
fringe of the polar pack around Spitzbergen, getting in open water as
far as 82° North, five degrees higher than we in the _Jeannette_ were
ever carried by the pack before it crushed us.

But neither expedition found the slightest sign of us, and more alarmed
than ever, an international search was being organized by our Navy,
with the help of England, Russia, and Sweden for the summer of 1882.
In the midst of these preparations in late December, 1881, from far
up in the Arctic Circle, my first brief telegram from Bulun at last
reached Irkutsk and flashed out over the wires to an astonished world,
ending the mystery of the _Jeannette’s_ disappearance, bringing joy
to some whose friends had definitely escaped; blank despair to others
whose lives were bound up with poor Chipp and his lost boat’s crew;
and a terrible state of mingled fear and hope, not to be resolved for
unknown months yet, to Emma De Long and the families of those men
still with her husband. I felt that they were dead, but I did not know
it, and dared not say so. I could only announce them as having landed
safely, but yet unfound. My heart ached for Emma De Long, half the
globe away from me, clinging to her daughter, praying that her husband
might yet be alive, tortured by the long drawn out fear of waiting for
word from Siberia, dreading each knock at the door as announcing the
messenger bringing definitely the black news of his death, and all the
while with her imagination able to dwell only on the agonies which her
husband had undergone, and if by some miracle (for which she prayed) he
still were living among those Arctic wastes, he must yet be suffering.

I received _carte blanche_ from Washington for funds to pursue the
search; from St. Petersburg, I was assured all the resources of Russia
were at my command. But Washington and St. Petersburg were far away
from the trackless delta where I must pursue my search, and _carte
blanche_ telegrams helped me little. A few dogs, a few interpreters,
a supply of dried fish sold under compulsion by natives who could ill
afford to spare them, was the total extent of the assistance I could
use and get delivered to distant Bulun up in the Arctic Circle, fifteen
hundred long miles away from civilization and the telegraph wires at
Irkutsk, when in late February with practically all the fish in the
Lena Delta in my possession and the poor Yakuts face to face with
famine, I resumed my search.

Dividing my forces, I sent Bartlett and an interpreter to cover the
eastern branches of the Lena, while with Nindemann to guide me, I
started again to search the western branches myself.

I had seven dog teams hauling fish, having practically stripped
Jamaveloch and every Lena village of its entire supply. Delayed
considerably still by fierce snow storms, we went north from Ku Mark
Surk into the delta, but it took two weeks for the straining dogs to
drag our stores along to where the Lena started branching widely at
Cass Carta, and many a burdened dog froze to death in the drifts before
he got there. At Cass Carta at last, I reorganized my remaining teams
and on March 12, still in the midst of-winter weather, sent Bartlett
east, and with Nindemann, began myself the search of western rivers.

For a week, systematically Nindemann scouted along each river, trying
to pick out the one that he and Noros had followed south. But the
innumerable storms since had changed the whole face of that frozen
country. How many streams we examined, I cannot even guess. Nindemann,
his broad brows knit with puzzled furrows, could find nothing familiar
in any of them. Baffled, we gave up searching there and went far to the
north, to follow down De Long’s trail from the coast, but at the same
point where in November I had lost the track, Nindemann himself was
able to do no better in pointing out the path. And then came a raging
storm which held us snowbound for three days.

Despairingly I considered the situation. Would we ever pick up De
Long’s track? It must be soon or never! Before long the river ice would
break up, we could no longer travel, and swollen with melting snow
from the whole interior of Siberia, the Lena would come flooding down
in torrents to drown out the low delta lands, washing away forever
every trace of my comrades! De Long must be somewhere to the south.
In desperation, I gave up searching the central delta for his track,
and decided to go back again to the delta head, to sweep the spreading
rivers there as I came north.

Soon after, starting from the southward again, since Nindemann also
felt that there he could do best, we began at a wide bay, from which
one tremendous river flowed eastward toward Jamaveloch, another flowed
westward and northward toward Tomat, and in between the Lena, in many
smaller branches, flowed due north, spreading widely out and meandering
over the delta, though now of course it flowed beneath the ice as every
stream was still solidly frozen over.

Following the edge of this tremendous bay, I examined every headland on
it. Broken slabs of ice were piled up in tangled masses on the banks;
the snow, drifted by the winds, ran in smooth slopes from the river
ice to the tops of the promontories, filling in the banks; dozens of
frozen streams, like twigs spreading from a limb, branched out from the
bay, complicating the search.

Coming in the late afternoon to a high headland on the western side of
the bay, I left my sledge as usual on the river ice, and clambered up
the crust of snow to its top. The crest was strongly wind-swept and
fairly bare of snow; as I stooped to brace myself against the wind, I
saw right on the point of the promontory signs of a long-dead fire,
with half-burned driftwood logs hove into the wide bed of ashes and
apparently many footprints in the ice about.

Beckoning to Nindemann to come up, I asked him,

“Did you or Noros build that fire here?”

“No,” said Nindemann, “it looks to me we came this way, but we never
had a fire like that.”

I motioned up my dog-driver, questioned him in native dialect,

“Do Yakuts build fires this way?”

“No, no, master,” he protested volubly, “Yakuts build only small fires,
never big fires like this.”

“Well, Nindemann,” I said, “I think we’re on the trail at last. This
looks to me like a signal fire, especially since it’s built on this
promontory to shine out over the bay. De Long must have passed here.”

“Yah,” agreed the quartermaster, “that is right. There! See? There is
the old wreck of a flatboat on the bank and I remember Louis and me
passed by that wreck the same day we left the captain! This is the way
we came, and the captain said he’d follow our trail!”

Going down to the river again, we climbed aboard our dog sledges.
Nindemann on his sledge led along the ice, and with me following on
mine, we set off on a short journey up the stream to examine the bare
skeleton of that flatboat, stranded on the bank a quarter of a mile
downstream.

I rode, sitting sideways on my sledge, facing the high bank which rose
some thirty feet above the river, and which, as usual, had hard-driven
snow packed in a glistening slope from its crest down over the frozen
river. Going swiftly along over the ice this way while eagerly scanning
the river bank, I noted standing up through the sloping snow what
seemed to be the points of four sticks lashed together with a rope.

Immediately I rolled off the speeding sledge, and swiftly going to the
spot, found a Remington rifle slung from the sticks, its muzzle some
eight inches out of the snow. A real sign of De Long at last!

Instantly I sent my driver to bring Nindemann back, feeling that here
the weakening wanderers might have made a cache of such belongings as
they could no longer carry, and perhaps even have left a record of
their progress. We were certainly on the trail now!

While the Yakuts at my orders began digging in the snow around those
sticks, Nindemann returned to the flatboat, and I with a compass again
climbed up the steep river bank, intending to get some bearings from
which later I might find that spot in case a sudden snow-storm should
blot out the way to it.

Panting from my exertions, I looked about for a good place on that high
ground from which to take the compass bearings when a few steps off,
partially buried in the snow still left on that forlorn and gale-swept
height, I saw a copper tea kettle. With a beating heart, I started
for it, then stopped short. There before me on that desolate plateau,
protruding stiff and stark above the snow—was an extended arm!

[Illustration: _LENA DELTA_]

For an instant I gazed, aghast at my discovery, then dropped to my
knees to find that that arm belonged to Captain De Long! There he lay,
cold and silent in death, half buried in the snow. A yard or two off
lay Dr. Ambler, while near their feet, closest to where the fire had
been beneath the copper kettle, was stretched Ah Sam. My long search
was ended at last!

Mournfully I looked. There had the saga of the _Jeannette_ ended, there
in the Arctic snows was my lost captain—dead. For a long time with
bowed head, I knelt sobbing before my commander, whom last I had seen,
erect in the cockpit of his boat in the midst of that roaring polar
gale which had brought swift death to Chipp, waving me on to safety.

As I gazed tear-stricken into his face, calm even in death, I was
struck by the odd position of his left arm, upraised with open fingers
as if, lying there dying, he had tossed something over his shoulder and
his stiffening arm had frozen in that gesture. I looked behind him.

A few feet away in the snow beyond his head lay a small notebook, the
journal he had kept since the _Jeannette_ sank. To me it seemed as if
De Long, in his dying moment had tossed that journal over his head,
away from the fire at his feet lest it should blow in there and be
destroyed. I seized the journal and rose. Before me were only three of
the captain’s party—where were the other eight? Perhaps the journal,
if the dying captain had kept it up, might tell me. Nindemann had
parted from the captain on October 9. What had happened since that day?
Hurriedly, I separated the frozen leaves and turned to the page marked—




CHAPTER XXXIX


“October 10th, Monday—120th day.

Last half ounce alcohol at 5:30; at 6:30 send Alexey off to look for
ptarmigan. Eat deerskin scraps. Yesterday morning ate my deerskin
footnips. Light S.S.E. airs. Not very cold. Under way at eight. In
crossing creek three of us got wet. Built fire and dried out. Ahead
again until eleven. Used up. Built fire. Made a drink out of the
tea-leaves from alcohol bottle. On again at noon. Fresh S.S.W. wind,
drifting snow, very hard going. Lee begging to be left. Some little
beach, and then stretches of high bank. Ptarmigan tracks plentiful.
Following Nindemann’s tracks. At three halted, used up; crawled into a
hole in the bank, collected wood and built fire. Alexey away in quest
of game. Nothing for supper except a spoonful of glycerine. All hands
weak and feeble, but cheerful. God help us.

       *       *       *       *       *

October 11th, Tuesday—121st day.

S.W. gale with snow. Unable to move. No game. One spoonful of glycerine
and hot water for food. No wood in our vicinity.

       *       *       *       *       *

October 12th, Wednesday—122nd day.

Breakfast; last spoonful of glycerine and hot water. For dinner, we
tried a couple of handfuls of Arctic willow in a pot of water and drank
the infusion. Everybody getting weaker and weaker. Hardly strength to
get firewood. S.W. gale with snow.

       *       *       *       *       *

October 13th, Thursday—123rd day.

Willow tea. Strong S.W. wind. No news from Nindemann. We are in the
hands of God, and unless He intervenes, we are lost. We cannot move
against the wind, and staying here means starvation. Afternoon went
ahead for a mile, crossing either another river or a bend in the big
one. After crossing missed Lee. Went down in a hole in the bank and
camped. Sent back for Lee. He had turned back, lain down, and was
waiting to die. All united in saying Lord’s Prayer and Creed after
supper. Living gale of wind. Horrible night.

       *       *       *       *       *

October 14th, Friday—124th day.

Breakfast, willow tea. Dinner, one half teaspoonful sweet oil and
willow tea. Alexey shot one ptarmigan; had soup. S.W. wind moderating.

       *       *       *       *       *

October 15th, Saturday—125th day.

Breakfast, willow tea and two old boots. Conclude to move on at
sunrise. Alexey breaks down, also Lee. Come to empty grain raft. Halt
and camp. Signs of smoke at twilight to southward.

       *       *       *       *       *

October 16th, Sunday—126th day.

Alexey broken down. Divine Service.

       *       *       *       *       *

October 17th, Monday—127th day.

Alexey dying. Doctor baptized him. Read prayers for sick. Mr. Collins’
birthday; forty years old. About sunset Alexey died; exhaustion from
starvation. Covered him with ensign and laid him in the crib.

       *       *       *       *       *

October 18th, Tuesday—128th day.

Calm and mild, snow falling. Buried Alexey in the afternoon. Laid him
on the ice of the river and covered him with slabs of ice.

       *       *       *       *       *

October 19th, Wednesday—129th day.

Cutting up tent to make footgear. Doctor went ahead to find new camp.
Shifted by dark.

       *       *       *       *       *

October 20th, Thursday—130th day.

Bright and sunny, but very cold. Lee and Kaack done up.

       *       *       *       *       *

October 21, Friday—131st day.

Kaack was found dead about midnight between the Doctor and myself. Lee
died about noon. Read prayers for sick when he found he was going.

       *       *       *       *       *

October 22nd, Saturday—132nd day.

Too weak to carry the bodies of Lee and Kaack out on the ice. The
Doctor, Collins and I carried them around the corner out of sight. Then
my eye closed up.

       *       *       *       *       *

October 23rd, Sunday—133rd day.

Everybody pretty weak. Slept or rested all day and then managed to get
enough wood in before dark. Read part of Divine Service. Suffering in
our feet. No footgear.

       *       *       *       *       *

October 24th, Monday—134th day.

A hard night.

       *       *       *       *       *

October 25th, Tuesday—135th day.

       *       *       *       *       *

October 26th, Wednesday—136th day.

       *       *       *       *       *

October 27th, Thursday—137th day.

Iveson broken down.

       *       *       *       *       *

October 28th, Friday—138th day.

Iveson died during early morning.

       *       *       *       *       *

Oct. 29th, Saturday—139th day.

Dressier died during night.

       *       *       *       *       *

Oct. 30. Sunday, 140th day.

Boyd and Görtz died during night. Mr. Collins dying




CHAPTER XL


“Mr. Collins dying

And there on October 30th, the pitiful record ended. Before he could
put a period to that final tragic sentence, the pencil dropped from
De Long’s nerveless fingers, with his last conscious effort he tossed
his journal over his shoulder to save that record of what had happened
to his shipmates from the fire nearby. My blurred eyes stared at the
pages before me; my captain had died as he had lived—with his thoughts
only on his men. Not a word on that last tragic page about himself,
his sufferings, or his own approaching death. And yet for the solitary
malcontent who on the _Jeannette_ had tried the captain’s very soul,
who had fought savagely to destroy the discipline on which De Long
relied to save our health and our lives amid the perils of the Arctic
pack, he could still tax the little strength left in his starved body
to note down,

“Mr. Collins’ birthday; forty years old.”

And so to the final entry, by the irony of Fate recording that man’s
death, the dying captain’s stiffening fingers scrawled out faithfully
the record of his shipmates, but not one word regarding George
Washington De Long!

With wet cheeks, I stood humbly before the frozen body from which the
great soul of my Captain had passed, till finally Nindemann approached
and with his aid, I loosened the three terribly emaciated forms from
the snow and bore them gently to our sledges. Evening fell and we
returned to a hut at Mat Vay, ten miles south across the great frozen
bay, where I established headquarters. The next few days, digging in
the snow near the tripod where I had found the rifle, we uncovered
the bodies of the rest of the party, all fearfully gaunt. There was
not a whole garment on any man; and not one pair of boots or of fur
clothing could we find. Everything made of skin or of leather had been
eaten; most of the men lay in ragged underwear with their feet bound in
canvas, and the first two who died had been stripped naked and so lay
in the snow, their poor rags wrapped round their then dying comrades.

As we dug away the snow in the lee of that river bank where the last
ten survivors (Alexey had died a short distance away near that grounded
raft) had huddled, trying to shelter themselves from the fierce gales,
we found first the ashes of their fire, then the sticks with which they
had sought to rig their sole remaining piece of canvas as a windbreak,
and then so close to the ashes that their underwear was badly scorched,
the bodies of all hands except Lee and Kaack. And there also we found
De Long’s main ship journals. But those two men and the expedition’s
silken ensign we could not find.

I puzzled over that, and then reading back again De Long’s journal, I
noted that Lee and Kaack had been carried “around the corner out of
sight.” But where was there a corner in that bank running straight
north and south? And then it came to me that as all the gales De Long
had logged blew from the southward, they must have set their bit of
canvas up athwart the wind and camped on its north side, so that he
meant around the corner _of the tent_. Directing the natives to dig to
the southward of the sticks, they soon found Lee and Kaack, naked both,
and now there was nothing missing but the ensign. Knowing well that
De Long, however weak he might be, would never have abandoned that, I
ordered the edge of the tent line excavated and there at last we found
the silken banner, deep in the snow, safely rolled in its oilskin case.

But one thing still puzzled me. Why were the men whose deaths De Long
had recorded all there in the lee of that high bank, while he himself,
with Ah Sam and Dr. Ambler, the last survivors, lay on top that
promontory where there was not the slightest shelter from the biting
wind? After another survey, I could only conclude that De Long, wholly
despairing of rescue and feeling death swiftly approaching, had with
his two dying companions started to move the records of the expedition
up from the river bank onto the higher ground where they would longer
escape the spring floods, but the three of them having made one trip
up the slope in which they dragged with them the copper kettle and a
tin chart case (which I found there near the captain) had none of them
the strength to crawl back for another load and there they all soon
perished. Evidently of those three Ah Sam died first; his arms were
crossed above his breast as if laid out by the others close to the
little fire they had built beneath the kettle in which they were trying
to boil a few twigs of Arctic willow. Whether Dr. Ambler or Captain De
Long was the last survivor, no one will ever know—Ambler lay face down
near the fire, De Long a little farther off.

At my direction, Nindemann and Bartlett carefully searched the camp and
all the bodies for any final messages left, but only on Surgeon Ambler
did they come across anything like that. The last page of his journal
was in the form of a letter. I sobbed as I read it.

  On The Lena,
  Thursday, Oct. 20, 1881.

  _To Edward Ambler, Esq.,
  Markham P. O., Fauquier Co., Va._

  MY DEAR BROTHER:

 I write these lines in the faint hope that by God’s merciful
 providence they may reach you at home. I have myself very little hope
 of surviving. We have been without food for nearly two weeks, with
 the exception of four ptarmigans amongst eleven of us. We are growing
 weaker, and for more than a week have had no food. We can barely
 manage to get wood enough now to keep warm, and in a day or two that
 will be passed. I write to you all, my mother, sister, brother Cary
 and his wife and family, to assure you of the deep love I now and have
 always borne you. If it had been God’s will for me to have seen you
 all again I had hoped to have enjoyed the peace of home-living once
 more. My mother knows how my heart has been bound to hers since my
 earliest years. God bless her on earth and prolong her life in peace
 and comfort. May His blessing rest upon you all. As for myself, I am
 resigned, and bow my head in submission to the Divine will. My love to
 my sister and brother Cary; God’s blessing on them and you. To all my
 friends and relatives a long farewell. Let the Howards know I thought
 of them to the last, and let Mrs. Pegram also know that she and her
 nieces were continually in my thought.

 God in his infinite mercy grant that these lines may reach you. I
 write them in full faith and confidence in help of our Lord Jesus
 Christ.

  Your loving brother,
  J. M. AMBLER.




CHAPTER XLI


Atop a rocky promontory looking to the north, towering four hundred
feet above the great bay of the Lena Delta and far beyond the reach of
any possible flood, I prepared for my captain and his crew their final
resting place. Excavating from the solid rock a foundation, I built
in the form of a huge cairn, a monumental rectangular stone structure
visible easily twenty miles in all directions, making its sides of the
thick planking torn from that wrecked flatboat near the last fatal
camp, and covering the stout planking with rough stone quarried on
the mountain top. Above that rocky cairn, I raised a massive cross
twenty-five feet high, hewn from a driftwood spar salvaged from the bay
below, and upon the spreading arms of that cross, I cut the names of
those who were to rest beneath it.

When all was ready, on April 6, 1882, on that gale-swept mountain top
overlooking the Lena, we buried them. Composed wholly of sledges,
the long funeral procession of straining dog teams wound across the
snow-covered tundra and up the ice-coated slopes of that mountain, the
dark sledges bearing the silent seamen standing starkly out against
the whiteness of the driven snow, with the one bit of color there the
_Jeannette’s_ silken ensign draping the cold figure of her captain. On
foot the three survivors present, Bartlett, Nindemann, and I, trudged
sadly along. Arrived at the cairn, we three lifted the thin bodies from
the sledges, tenderly laid them out on a bed of snow inside the tomb,
Captain De Long at one end, then the others in order of rank: Surgeon
Ambler, Mr. Collins, Lee, Kaack, Görtz, Boyd, Iversen, Dressier, and
last at the other end, Ah Sam. Then reverently removing the ensign
from the captain’s body that I might return it to her hands who
fashioned it, we took our long last look at our dead comrades.

In that deep Arctic solitude with no unhallowed lips droning out unfelt
phrases, we who had lived with them in toil and peril and nearly died
with them in anguish, stood with bowed shoulders and bared heads in the
freezing wind before our dead, and with choking voices murmured our
heartfelt farewell,

“Good-by! Sleep well, shipmates!”

And then sorrowfully sealing up the cairn, we left them to their rest.
Never had heroic explorers a more fitting tomb. Amidst the Siberian
snows, looking out over the Lena’s great bay at the desolate cape below
which had witnessed their last agony, and northward across that Polar
Sea which he had valiantly given his life to conquer, De Long and his
men of the Jeannette lay at last beneath the huge cross on that rocky
cairn, with the fierce Arctic gales they had so often bravely faced
mournfully wailing their eternal dirge.

[Illustration: Cross on mountain]




EPILOGUE




EPILOGUE


I am an old man now, looking forward soon to joining those shipmates
of long ago. Many honors have come my way, and for sixteen years as
an admiral in the Navy, I have had charge of designing and building
the throbbing engines which drive our every warship. That mighty fleet
which so proudly showed the American flag in every ocean on the globe
and has just returned to confound the doubters at home and abroad who
foresaw those ships with broken-down machinery cluttering every port
from Rio to Yokohama, was my design. The engines and the boilers which
so sturdily drove the _Oregon_ twelve thousand miles around South
America under forced draft in time to take her place in the forefront
of the battle-line at Santiago and deal the death blows to Spanish sea
power, were my creation.

From that day in 1861 when as a young engineer officer I joined the
Navy, until the day forty-two years later when I retired full of honors
as its Engineer-in-Chief, machinery had been my life and I had hoped
that my name might as a result find its place with that of Ericsson
as one who had done much to advance the application of power to our
warships. But as the years since my retirement weigh me down, and I
see my proud _Oregon_ already vanished from the fleet, and that fleet
itself ere long destined to disappear before the creations of newer
and better engineers than I, more and more do I realize that it is the
men themselves and how they lived and died, rather than their puny
handiwork, which those who come after us will ever have reason to
cherish as the true measure of any man.

And so that huge cross I reared in the Lena Delta amidst the polar
snows looms larger and larger in my mind and now I only humbly hope,
as approaching the end of my long days I look back over my life, that
the name of George Wallace Melville may be a little remembered as one
of those who served on that far-off cruise in the _Jeannette_, when
my science and machinery faded from all importance, engineering went
wholly by the board, when first with only our stout ship to shield us
and then without her, face to face with Nature in her fiercest mood for
endless months we battled the Arctic ice beneath the banner of George
Washington De Long, and in his life and death I learned what truly
makes the man.