Kenneth McAlpine Part 23

CHAPTER SIXTEEN.

FROZEN UP IN THE NORTH.

"Now hie' we to the Norlan seas And far-off fields of ice."

Anon.

"It is twenty years ago! Twenty years ago! Twenty years!" began the doctor.

"Yes, I own to it; no need for this matter-of-fact memory of mine to nudge me so, and keep on reminding me of the flight of sly old Father Time. 'Tis twenty years ago this very summer since I sailed away to Polar seas, in a small but st.u.r.dy brig of barely three hundred tons. A medical student I was, in charge of fifty men, all told, and with all a medical student's audacity and ignorance of the n.o.ble profession to which I have now the honour to belong. What cared I then if half the crew fell ill? There was plenty of medicine in the chest. I would do my best, and dose them. Well, if, after being dosed, they should die, why, the sea was deep enough--they should not want for decent burial!

And what cared I that a fearful accident might take place, and heads be gashed, and limbs be crushed? There were surgical instruments _galore_ on board, practice makes perfect, and if my patients succ.u.mbed after an operation, well, every dog has his day, and the _post hoc propter hoc_ argument has been proved to be unsound.

"Gentlemen, have ever you roughed it in the Arctic Ocean, in a bit of a ship so small that a schoolboy, with average length of legs, could clear its decks from binnacle to bowsprit with a hop, step, and jump, the saloon not larger than two railway compartments, your state-room not half so big as one? Have you been in a gale of wind in such a craft?

Was she on her beam-ends, with the cold, green seas, curling higher and higher as they advanced, forming awful arches of water, into which the vessel seemed to be sucked, and which broke, not _on_, but over and beyond her? Have you been ice-logged in a sea-way in such a vessel, no land, nor even a berg, in sight--only the restless waves, that tw.a.n.ged and hummed, and sang in the frosty air as they pa.s.sed you, with bows and bulwarks, decks and spars, and rigging and blocks, mere shapes of ice, and ice alone to all appearance, the men's caps and coats, and hair and beards, so white with the freezing spray, that they looked, as they moved to and fro on the slippery decks, like the ghostly crew of a ghost ship? Have you been in such a craft when she was being squeezed in this pack, the one dark spot in the midst of a limitless plain of dazzling snow-clad ice, all lifting and rolling and moving with the pressure of the invisible waves that are pa.s.sing swiftly underneath? Have you ever heard the terrible sounds an ice-pack emits, when the swell from a distant storm comes sweeping under it, the groaning, the wailing, grinding, griding noise, as if the ocean on which you stood were filled with old-world monsters in their dying agonies? Have you ever listened to the roaring thunder of a lofty iceberg rent in pieces, and falling headlong into the sea? Have you stood on the pack and seen two bergs crush an acre of bay ice between them, piling the pieces one over the other, like leaves of a book or cards in a pack, till they stood high as the tallest tree in a forest of pines? Have you been out alone on the ice-field at night, far away from your ship, amid a silence that, like Egyptian darkness, could be felt, watching the glorious tints of the--

"'Aurora Borealis race, That flit ere you can point their place?'

"And, even while gazing and admiring, have you seen dark clouds roll rapidly up from the horizon and blot this aurora out, so that ere you could reach your brig you were surrounded by swirling drift and blinding snow, more dangerous far than the sand-storms that sweep over the Soudan deserts, with the thunder rattling close o'erhead, and the bewildering lightning in swift diffusive gleams intensifying the cave-like darkness that followed?

"If such experiences have not been yours, you may have been tossed about on the giant waves of the broad Atlantic, you may have weathered the Cape in a gale, and the Horn in a snow-storm, you may have sweltered for weeks in a rolling calm under a tropical sun, and been the sport of a tornado in the Indian Ocean, yet there are wonders in the mighty deep seen by some who go down to the sea in ships to which you are a total stranger. From beginning to end, our voyage in that little brig, twenty years ago, was a non-propitious one. We ran before a gale all the way to Lerwick, where the Greenland fleet lay anch.o.r.ed. We had hardly left the rock-bound sh.o.r.es of Shetland--that 'sea-begirdled peat moss'--ere the blackness of darkness settled down on the ocean around us; and storm and tempest became our constant companions for three long weeks, till sheltered at last under the lee of the pack, with bowsprit and topmasts gone, and the bulwarks more like the palings one sometimes sees around a cattle-field than anything else in the world. But even worse was to follow: with several other ships we took the ice, which was loose, and in three weeks' time we found ourselves all alone in the midst of a hard frozen ice-field, and fully one hundred miles from the open water, a bright blue frosty sky above us, and in silence--a silence never broken even by the cry of a bird or guttural roar of Arctic bear.

"After many months of 'solitary confinement,' we escaped and reached home at last. Many of the men's relations met us on the pier, dressed in deepest mourning; the 'blacks,' as such dress is called, had been donned for us, for our ship had been reported as lost with all hands!

"Life in that lonesome ice-pack was a weary 'bide,'--

"'Day after day, day after day, And neither breath nor motion.'

"No, not as much wind as would have sufficed to lift a snowflake, never a cloud in the sky, and the sun going round and round and round, but far above the horizon even at midnight. We tired of reading books; we tired of card-playing and games on the ice; we even tired of music itself.

Monotony generated _ennui_; _ennui_ bred melancholy; plenty of exercise on the ice alone could save us from succ.u.mbing to actual illness. We knew that well, but we were thoroughly apathetic, and did not care to take it. The captain, a young and energetic man, at last hit upon a happy expedient which succeeded most completely in restoring something of life and animation to the crew, who were rapidly merging into a state of Rip Van Winkleism, painful to behold. He determined to form a camp three miles away from the ship. Simply walking to and from it would be some little excitement, it would be exercise with a purpose, and exercise, as medical men will tell you, without pleasure or purpose, is entirely useless in a hygienic point of view.

"Our captain, the first and second mates, and myself were seated at breakfast one morning when he made his proposal.

"'Doctor,' he said--NB, he called me 'Doctor' always, but at that time I had no more business with the t.i.tle than the tailor had--

"'Doctor, how are the men getting on forward?'

"'They haven't much life in them,' I replied; 'they are all making silver rings now out of sixpenny bits and shillings. That is the latest fad, but the coins will soon be all used up; then I suppose all hands will go to sleep for a month or two.'

"'I think, doctor,' said Captain Peters, 'that their livers want stirring up. Eh? Don't you, doctor?'

"'Well,' I replied, 'anything for a quiet life. There is plenty of blue pill and black draught on board. I'll stir their livers up. Pa.s.s the ham.'

"'All right, then,' said the captain; 'you stir their livers up, and I'll propose something to-morrow to prevent them getting sluggish again.'

"True to my promise, I gave all hands a blue pill that night, and next forenoon, at a little before twelve, the captain called the men aft, and ordered the steward to bring up a gallon of rum and five pounds of tobacco. Then he doled out the latter and ordered the mainbrace to be spliced. The men after this looked more lively than they had done for a month.

"'Now that I've got you awake with the help of the doctor and black Jack' (black Jack was the rum measure), said the captain, 'let me tell you what we are going to do. We are going to convey wood and canvas by sleigh across the pack, to a patch of bay ice about three miles from here, and by the side of it, on the top of the heavy berg, we will build a tent, with a fire-place in it, big enough to roast a bear. This tent or marquee will be a regular Hall of Delights by the sad sea wave; we will cook in it, and eat in it, and dance and sing and tell stories in it. What say you, men?'

"The men broke out into a wild cheer.

"'Wait a wee,' continued the captain; 'I'm going to do more for you than that, for goodness only knows how long we may have to remain in this gloomy ice-field, and if I don't keep you alive, you'll all go to sleep and not waken any more in this world. We shall set to work, then, and make an immense great hole in that patch of bay ice, and it will be your duty to keep it from freezing; then seals will come up, and maybe walruses too, and catching these and the sharks will be glorious fun and keep us all alive and awake. That is my plan complete.'

"This idea of the captain's was a splendid one, and we all entered into it heart and soul. We built rude sledges and tooled wood and all other necessaries over the pack, and before a week was over we had erected a large and handsome marquee with a floor of timber, doors and windows, table and fire-place all comfortable and jolly.

"We had hammocks slung round it also, so that when tired we could lounge and read, or lounge and sleep, and on the whole we felt like new beings, and each of us was as happy as a schoolboy with a tin whistle.

"The opening in the bay ice proved a wondrous success, for the rays of sunlight penetrated far down into the black-blue water, and seals, seeing the light from afar, swam wondering towards it, then finding a hole, came out to breathe and look about them, and so fell victims to their curiosity. We had seal's liver and bacon for breakfast then, and found it a great treat. We skinned the phocas for sake of their blubber, with the following results: sharks in dozens came to eat the crangs we threw back into the sea, and birds reappeared, malleys, gulls, skuas, and terns, to pick up the stray bits of grease, so we had sport enough, and regained our spirits and strength in consequence. But when a great fire was built on a berg, and the carcase of a seal roasted thereon, bears sniffed the perfume, though they must have been miles and miles away, and came prowling down to the feast, which I ought to add had been prepared for their especial delectation.

"They were somewhat shy at first, they preferred squatting at a distance, and contenting themselves with the delicious odour of the t.i.t-bits placed temptingly on the hummock near, but as their numbers increased, so did their courage, and before very long we had the satisfaction of seeing them in twos and even threes, wrangling together over juicy joints. Then was our chance, and we did not hesitate to avail ourselves thereof. Hungry bears are by no means easily scared, and so our sport was good.

"There was no more laziness among our crew now, no more danger of our fellows falling into Rip Van Winkleism, for every day brought us sport and excitement and fun and adventure. We all began to sing again, and that is always a good sign on board a ship. There was singing fore and singing aft, and tales told in the saloon and yarns spun around the galley fire.

"The Hall of Delights by the sad sea wave proved a very great success indeed. Somehow or other we came to like it better than the ship itself, and although we always came home to sleep, it was often very late indeed before we scrambled on board our slippery-decked brig, and went below to the dingy darkness of state-room, hammock, or bunk.

"In this Hall of Delights we had music, for Peter Kelty played the violin, and Sandy Watson the clarionet; then there was big Magnus Rugg could put in a ba.s.s with his voice alone that you couldn't have told from a violoncello. We had plenty of fire in the hall, but when the fiddles started of an evening, it wasn't much heat we needed, for those--

"'Hornpipes, jigs, strathspeys, and reels, Put life and mettle in our heels.'

"When tired of dancing, or rather, I should say, in the intervals between the dances, we had singing and recitations. The simplest of the simple both were, for in the latter I don't think we ever got beyond 'Douglas's Tragedy' or 'Tam o' Shanter,' and in the former 'Annie Laurie' or 'The Braes o' Balquidder' were far more appreciated than anything from the best of operas could have been.

"But the _summus mons_, in a musical way, was attained by our spectioneer, or third officer, for he not only sang most charmingly, but he accompanied himself on the zither.

"He was somewhat of a character, was this individual. He was far from old-looking in the face, but his hair and beard were like the very snow itself. He seldom even smiled, or if he did, it was a languid, sad kind of smile that kept well down about the lips, and never curved round the eyes or made them sparkle. He was tender and kind in heart, though, and a favourite with all hands.

"By-the-bye, his name was Summers, but he was always called Winter, and didn't mind it a bit, he was so good-natured.

"We were all enjoying ourselves one evening in the Hall of Delights, we had danced till the fiddlers were tired, and everybody that could sing had sung, so there was a kind of lull--a momentary silence, in fact.

Now, as it was nearly ten o'clock, if this silence had continued for even fifteen seconds, the captain would certainly have jumped up and said:

"'Well, lads, we'd better be moving.'

"We didn't feel like moving yet, so the silence was not allowed to extend itself.

"'Hi!' cried Kelty, 'I call upon you for a _comic_ song, Mr Winter.'

"'Or a _funny_ story,' cried somebody else.

"There was loud laughing at the bare idea of Winter treating us to either.

"Winter looked round among us, in an amused kind of way, as if he quite enjoyed the joke, and when the laugh subsided, we all glanced towards him for his reply. I think I see him now; one hand rested on the zither bringing out stray chords, the other rested on the table, the great oil lamp that stood at one side threw his features into semi-shadow, and there was a thoughtful far-away look in his eyes.

"'Yes,' he said, at last, 'I'll tell you a story.'

"'A funny one? Eh?' said the mate.

"'Well--no, not _very_ funny. But anything to pa.s.s the time, I suppose.

I'll tell you a story of my own grey hairs.'

"'Capital,' we cried, and hammered with our feet on the wooden floor, by way of giving him encouragement. Then we lit our pipes and prepared to listen."