Lost in the Air Part 24

They were still drifting through the water at a rather rapid rate, but little by little a speed gauge was falling. Soon they would be lying motionless beneath the Arctic floe, as helpless as a dead whale; and should no dark water-hole appear before that time came, they were doomed.

Dave wiped the cold perspiration from his brow, as the hand on the dial dropped lower and lower. He touched a wheel again, and they rose another ten feet. "Must be nearly b.u.mping the ice by now; but at such a time as this one takes risks," he muttered.

What was that? Did he sense the dark shadow which always presaged open water? Surely, if walrus were about, there must be open water to give them air. And, yes--there it was; a hole in the floe!

His trembling hand again touched the wheel. The hand on the dial had dropped to nearly nothing. If the water-hole was narrow; if they missed it!

But no--up--up they shot, and in just another moment men were swarming from the conning-tower.

"Say!" exclaimed Dave, wiping his forehead. "Do you remember the obstacle-races they used to have at county fairs when you were a boy?"

The jackie he spoke to grinned and nodded.

"Well, this is an obstacle-race, and the worst I ever saw. The worst of it is, there are two prizes--one's the Pole and the other our own lives!"

The open water they had reached at so fortunate a moment proved to be a channel between floes. They were in no immediate danger now, but to repair the damage done to the shaft and adjust a new propeller, it was necessary that they drag the submarine to the surface of a broad ice-cake. This task was not as difficult as one might imagine. With the aid of ice-anchors, iron pulleys and cables, they without much delay harnessed their engine and finished the job all ship shape.

"Look!" said one of the seamen, pointing at the narrow stretch of water.

"She's closin' in!"

As the men looked they knew it to be true; the channel was certainly narrower than when they first rose upon its surface.

Securing a light line, the Doctor attached it to a plummet. Throwing the plummet across the s.p.a.ce, he drew the line taut. He then marked the point where the ice-line crossed it. Then for five minutes he divided his attention between the line and his watch. As he rose he muttered;

"Two hours! Two hours! How long will it take to complete the repairs?"

"Four hours, at least," Dave replied calmly.

"Then we're defeated!" The Doctor began pacing the surface of the ice.

"We're stuck--beaten! In two hours the channel will be closed, and there is not another patch of open water within five miles!"

If Dave seemed unnaturally calm on receipt of such news, it was because he had in his "bag of tricks" one of which the Doctor was not aware.

While in Nome he had made the acquaintance of a former British seaman, who had cruised Arctic waters in the late eighties, when j.a.pan was disputing the rights of Great Britain and the United States to close the seal fisheries. This man had told him how the gunboats had opened their way through the ice-floes. The idea had appealed to the young skipper.

Consequently, on boarding the submarine, he had carried under his arm a package which he handled very carefully, and finally deposited in the very center of a great bale of fur clothing. There it still remained.

"I suppose I might tell him," he said to himself. "But I guess I won't.

'Blessed is he that expecteth nothing,' The trick might not work. I'll wait." He turned to where the mechanics were hard at work adjusting the new propeller.

The repairing had gone on for something over two hours. The water-channel had completely closed. The Doctor was pacing the ice, lost in reflection.

Like a flash, there came into Dave's mind a new problem: would the current be content merely to close the channel, or would the ice soon begin to buckle and pile? With an uneasy mind, he urged the workmen to hasten, at the same time keeping an eye on the line of ice where the channel had so lately been.

CHAPTER XVII

"SO THIS IS THE POLE"

Many of the disasters which threaten us in this life pa.s.s us by. So it was with the impending disaster of piling ice near the submarine. It did not pile.

But there remained the problem of getting the submarine through that six-foot roof to the water beneath. How was it to be done?

The Doctor still paced back and forth, his unrest written in the furrows of his brow. The jackies, cheerful as ever, worked at their shift of repairing the craft, or, when not at work, played at "duck-on-rock" with chunks of ice. Once a seal appeared in a water-hole. Had he not departed promptly, there would have been fried seal steak and roast seal heart for supper. A lumbering bear, that had evidently never seen a human being before, was not so fortunate. His pelt was added to the trophies of the expedition, and his meat was ground into rather tough hamburger.

Finally the mechanics announced that the submarine was again in perfect condition. Now was the time to try Dave's last trick. Sending three men to stretch a hundred-fathom cable from the submarine, and to anchor its farther end to a great ice-pan, he dropped below to return at once with a package. Cautioning the men not to follow him, he walked away seventy-five yards, bent over the center of an ice-pan, seemingly to adjust certain things and put others in order. This done, he strung a black cord-like affair from his little pile of objects. He then measured off ten paces, and repeated these operations. He then lighted a small gasoline torch, and held the tip of the second cord-like affair to it, then raced to the other for the same purpose. When this was done, he sped away toward his companions. His actions were quickly understood by the watching crew. The furrows on the Doctor's brow had become mere lines. He was smiling hopefully. When Dave tripped over an ice boulder there was a cry of alarm, but he was up in a second, and found shelter with his men.

Instinctively everyone ducked. Then came two roaring explosions in quick succession. Bits of splintered ice fell around them like hail. Before the ice fragments had ceased falling, everyone was climbing to the top of the ice-pile. What they saw caused a shout of joy. Where the ice-pan had been was a long stretch of black water that slowly widened until it was quite large enough to float the submarine and allow it to submerge.

At once every man was at his task. The submarine moved slowly toward the water. There followed a dip, a great splash, a wild "Hurrah!" and five minutes later they were once more on their way to the Pole.

But, during this time, Dave's active mind had been working on another problem, which might appear to have been settled, but had not been: the drift of the floe. If the ice did not pile when the floes came together, why was it? It seemed to him there could be but one answer; other water-channels beyond the drift, under which they now traveled, were being closed by counter-currents. And if they closed, one after the other, more rapidly than the advance of the submarine, what was finally to become of the submarine crew? Would they not perish for lack of air?

Dave did not share the cheerful mood of the Doctor and the crew; it was his turn to look worried.

Many hours later, his worst fears having been realized, he found himself again in the little room of many wheels and dials. Hour after hour they had shot beneath the varying surface of the floe, but not for one hopeful second had they caught the dark shadow of open water. As near as he could reckon, allowing for the ever-present currents, Dave believed they were nearing the Pole. But his brain was now throbbing as if a hundred trip-hammers were pounding upon it. Moments alone would tell the tale, for the oxygen in the air was exhausted. Already half the crew were unconscious; others were reeling like drunken men. The Doctor had been the first to succ.u.mb to the poison of polluted air.

In this crisis Dave was not alone at the wheel. The Eskimo boy, Azazruk, was by his side. It was for just such a time as this that he had taught the bright young native something of the control of the mechanism.

Each wheel of the operating devices was numbered. He had taught the Eskimo a formula by pains-taking repet.i.tion.

"If ever the time comes when all are sick, no one can move but you," he had said many times, "and if at that time you see black waters above, act quickly. One--seven--ten--three--five, remember that. One wheel at a time, quickly but surely; one--seven--ten--three--five."

"One--seven--ten--three--five," the Eskimo boy had faithfully repeated after him, and rolled his eyes half in amus.e.m.e.nt and half in terror.

"Wheel one is for rise, seven for fans, ten to stop, three to lift the outer-hatch, five the inner-hatch," Dave had explained. "But you only need to remember one--seven--ten--three--five."

Somehow, Dave had come to believe that this hardy young Alaskan, reared as he had been, under perfect conditions of food, air, light and exercise, could, if the test ever came, survive his civilized companions.

Now, as he reeled and a great wave of dizzy sickness came over him, while he sank to the floor, Dave was glad he had taught Azazruk; for the boy, with a strange, strained look of terror in his eye, stood still at the wheel.

Dimly he felt, rather than saw, a dark shadow pa.s.s over them. As in a dream he whispered the magic formula:

"One--seven--ten--three--five."

Faintly he heard the grind of the wheels, felt the fan's breath on his cheek, then all was lost in unconsciousness.

After ten solid hours of sleep the airplane party awoke to find their dogs whining and pawing at the entrance to their shelter.

"Guess they're hungry," said Barney, rubbing his eyes sleepily. "Now if we could only locate a seal in some water-hole, it would help out our scanty supply of food."

"Suppose we try," said Bruce, slipping into his skin garments and looking to his rifle.

"All right," said Barney, and without delay they were hurrying to a pressure ridge of ice from whose top they might hope to locate the nearest water-lead. This took them some distance from their camp, but since the air was still and the moon flooded everything with light as of day, this did not worry them.

They had reached the height, and were scanning the long lead of water something like a mile to the left of them, when Bruce gave a cry of surprise, and, pointing to the south end of the lead, exclaimed:

"What's that immense black thing rising from the water? Can't be a whale up here, can it?"