My Attainment of the Pole Part 18

Gently testing the ice before me with the end of my axe, with spread legs, on snowshoes, with long, sliding steps, I slowly advanced.

A dangerous cracking sound pealed in every direction under my feet. The Eskimos followed. With every tread the thin sheet ice perceptibly sank under me, and waved, in small billows, like a sheet of rubber.

Stealthily, as though we were trying to filch some victory, we crept forward. We rocked on the heaving ice as a boat on waves of water. Now and then we stepped upon sheets of thicker ice, and hastily went forward with secure footing. None of us spoke during the dangerous crossing. I heard distinctly the panting of the dogs and the patter of their feet.

We covered the two miles safely, yet our snail-like progress seemed to cover many anxious years.

I cannot describe the exultation which filled me when the crossing was accomplished. It seemed as though my goal itself were stretching toward me. I experienced a sense of unbounded victory. I could have cheered with joy. Intoxicated with it, I and my companions leaped forward, new cheer quickening our steps. The dangers to come seemed less formidable now, and as we journeyed onward it was the mastering of these, as did our accomplishment in crossing the Big Lead, which gave us a daily incentive to continue our way and ever to apply brain and muscle to the subduing of even greater difficulties with zest.

It was in doing this that the real thrill, the real victory--the only thrill and victory, indeed--of reaching the North Pole lay. The attaining of this mythical spot did not then, and does not now, seem in itself to mean anything; I did not then, and do not now, consider it the treasure-house of any great scientific secrets. The only thing to be gained from reaching the Pole, the triumph of it, the lesson in the accomplishment, is that man, by brain power and muscle energy, can subdue the most terrific forces of a blind nature if he is determined enough, courageous enough, and undauntedly persistent despite failure.

On my journey northward I felt the ever constant presence of those who had died in trying to reach the goal before me. There were times when I felt a startling nearness to them--a sense like that one has of the proximity of living beings in an adjoining room. I felt the goad of their hopes within me; I felt the steps of their dead feet whenever my feet touched the ice. I felt their unfailing determination revive me when I was tempted to turn back in the days of inhuman suffering that were to come. I felt that I, the last man to essay this goal, must for them justify humanity; that I must crown three centuries of human effort with success.

With the perilous Big Lead behind us, a bounding course was set to reach the eighty-fifth parallel on the ninety-seventh meridian. What little movement was noted on the ice had been easterly. To allow for this drift we aimed to keep a line slightly west of the Pole.

We bounded northward joyously. Under our speeding feet the ice reverberated and rumbled with the echo of far-away splitting and crashing.

The sun sank into a haze like mother-of-pearl. Our pathway glowed with purple and orange. We paused only when the pale purple blue of night darkened the pack.

Starting forward in the afternoon of March 24, we crossed many small floes with low-pressure lines separated by narrow belts of new ice. Our speed increased. At times we could hardly keep pace with our dogs. The temperature rose to forty-one below zero. The western sky cleared slightly. Along the horizon remained misty appearances resembling land.

This low-lying fog continued during our entire second hundred miles over the Polar basin. Under it we daily expected to see new land.

But Nature did not satisfy our curiosity for a long time. Both Ah-we-lah and E-tuk-i-shook were sure of a constant nearness to land. Because of the native panic out of its rea.s.suring sight, I encouraged this belief, as I did concerning every other possible sign of land further northward.

I knew that only by encouraging a delusion of nearness to land could I urge them ever farther in the face of the hardships that must inevitably come.

An alt.i.tude of the sun at noon on March 24 gave our position as lat.i.tude 83 31'. The longitude was estimated at 96 27'. The land clouds of Grant Land were still visible. The low bank of mist in the west occasionally brightened. For a while I believed this to be an indication of Crocker Land.

Until midday I took observations and endeavored to study the appearances of land. Our dogs sniffed the air as if scenting game. After a diligent search, one seal blow-hole was located, and later we saw an old bear track. No algae or other small life was detected in the water between the ice crevices. At the Big Lead a few algae had been gathered. But here the sea seemed sterile. Signs of seal and bear, however, were encouraging to us as possible future food supply. In returning, I calculated the season would be more advanced, and it was possible that life might move northward, thus permitting an extension of the time allowance of our rations.

Although the heat of the sun was barely felt, its rays began to pierce our eyes with painful effects. Reflected from the spotless surface of the storm-driven snows, the bright light could not long be endured without some protection, even by the Eskimos. Now came the time to test a simple expedient that had occurred to me at Annoatok. Amber-colored goggles, darkened or smoked gla.s.ses and ordinary automobile goggles had all been tried with indifferent results. They failed for one reason or another, mostly because of an insufficient range of vision or because of a faulty construction that made it impossible to proceed more than a few minutes without removing the acc.u.mulated condensation within them. At Annoatok I had made amber-colored goggles from the gla.s.s of my photographic supplies. By adjusting them I soon found they were a priceless discovery. They entirely eliminated one of the greatest torments of Arctic travel.

While effectually screening the active rays that would have injured the eye, these amber gla.s.ses at the same time possessed the inestimable advantage of not interfering with the range of vision.

Relieved of the snow glare, the eye was better enabled to see distant objects than through field gla.s.ses. It is frequently extremely difficult to detect icy surface irregularities on cloudy days. The amber gla.s.s dispelled this trouble perfectly, enabling the eye to search carefully every nook and crevice through the vague incandescence which blinds the observer in hazy weather. The gla.s.ses did not reduce the _quant.i.ty_ of light, as do smoked gla.s.ses, but the _quality_; the actinic rays, which do the greatest harm, were eliminated. We were not only relieved of the pain and fatigue of eye strain, but the color imparted a touch of cheer and warmth to our chilled blue horizon. The usual snow goggles add to the ugly gray-blue of the frozen seas, which alone sends frosty waves through the nervous fibers.

So thoroughly delighted were we with these goggles that later we wore them even in igloos while asleep, with the double object of screening the strong light which pa.s.ses through the eyelids and of keeping the forehead warm.

On our march in the early part of the afternoon of the 24th the weather proved good. The ice, though newly creva.s.sed, improved as we advanced.

The late start spread our day's work close to the chill of midnight.

When we started the wind blew kindly. With glad hearts we forged forward without delays. On the ice I heard the soft patter of swift dog feet and the dashing, cutting progress of the sleds. As a scene viewed from a carousel, the field of ice swept around me in our dizzy, twisting progress. We swept resistlessly onward for twenty-three miles. As we had taken a zigzag course to follow smooth ice, I therefore recorded only eighteen miles to our credit.

The night was beautiful. The sun sank into a purple haze. Soon, in the magic of the atmosphere, appeared three suns of prismatic colors. These settled slowly into the frozen sea and disappeared behind that persistent haze of obscuring mist which always rests over the pack when the sun is low. During the night a narrow band of orange was flung like a ribbon across the northern skies. The pack surface glowed with varying shades of violet, lilac and pale purplish blue. Many such splendid sights are to be constantly seen in the Arctic. Although I reveled in it now, the time was soon to come when weariness and hunger numbed my faculties into a dreary torpor in which the splendor was not seen.

Signs appeared of a gale from the west before we were quite ready to camp. Little sooty clouds with ragged edges suddenly began to cover the sky, scurrying at an alarming pace. Beyond us a huge smoky volume of cloud blackened the pearly glitter.

Suitable camping ice was sought. In the course of an hour we built an igloo. We made the structure stronger than usual on account of the threatening storm. We constructed double tiers of snow blocks to the windward. A little water was thrown over the top to cement the blocks.

We fastened the dogs to the lee of hummocks. The sleds were securely lashed and fastened to the ice.

We expected a hurricane, and had not to wait to taste its fury. Before we were at rest in our bags the wind lashed the snows with a force inconceivable. With rushing drift, the air thickened. Dogs and sleds in a few minutes were buried under banks of snow and great drifts encircled the igloo. The cemented blocks of our dome withstood the sweep of the blast well. Yet, now and then, small holes were burrowed through the snow wall by the sharp wind. Drift entered and covered us. I lay awake for hours. I felt the terrible oppression of that raging, life-sucking vampire force sweeping over the desolate world. Disembodied things--the souls of those, perhaps, who had perished here--seemed frenziedly calling me in the wind. I felt under me the surge of the sweeping, awful sea. I felt the desolation of this stormy world within my shuddering soul; but, withal, I throbbed with a determination to a.s.sert the supremacy of living man over these blind, insensate forces; to prove that the living brain and palpitating muscle of a finite though conscious creature could vanquish a hostile Nature which creates to kill. I burned to justify those who had died here; to fulfill by proxy their hopes; to set their calling souls at rest. The storm waked in me an angry, challenging determination.

Early in the morning of the 25th the storm ceased as suddenly as it had come. A stillness followed which was appalling. It seemed as if the storm had heard my thoughts and paused to contemplate some more dreadful onslaught. The dogs began to howl desperately, as if attacked by a bear. We rushed out of our igloo, seeking guns. There was no approaching creature. It was, however, a signal of serious distress that we had heard. The dogs were in acute misery. The storm-driven snows had buried and bound them in unyielding ice. They had partly uncovered themselves.

United by trace and harness, they were imprisoned in frozen ma.s.ses. Few of them could even rise and stretch. They were in severe torment.

We hurriedly freed their traces and beat the cemented snows from their furs with sticks. Released, they leaped about gladly, their cries, curling tails and pointed noses telling of grat.i.tude. While we danced about, stretching our limbs and rubbing our hands to get up circulation, the sun rose over the northern blue, flushing the newly driven snows with warm tones. The temperature during the storm had risen to only 26 below, but soon the thermometer sank rapidly below 40. The west was still smoky and the weather did not seem quite settled. As it was still too early to start, we again slipped into the bags and sought quiet slumber.

As yet the dreadful insomnia which was to rob me of rest on my journey had not come, and I slept with the blissful soundness of a child. I must have been asleep several hours, when, of a sudden, I opened my eyes.

Terror gripped my heart. Loud explosive noises reverberated under my head. It seemed as though bombs were torn asunder in the depths of the cold sea beneath me. I lay still, wondering if I were dreaming. The sounds echoingly died away. Looking about the igloo, I detected nothing unusual. I saw Ah-we-lah and E-tuk-i-shook staring at me with wide-open frightened eyes. I arose and peeped through the eye port. The fields of ice without reflected the warm light of the rising sun in running waves of tawny color. The ice was undisturbed. An unearthly quiet prevailed.

Concluding that the ice was merely cracking under the sudden change of temperature, in quite the usual harmless manner, I turned over again, rea.s.suring my companions, and promptly fell asleep.

Out of the blankness of sleep I suddenly wakened again. Half-dazed, I heard beneath me a series of echoing, thundering noises. I felt the ice floor on which I lay quivering. I experienced the sudden giddiness one feels on a tossing ship at sea. In the flash of a second I saw Ah-we-lah leap to his feet. In the same dizzy instant I saw the dome of the snowhouse open above me; I caught a vision of the gold-streaked sky. My instinct at the moment was to leap. I think I tried to rise, when suddenly everything seemed lifted from under me; I experienced the suffocating sense of falling, and next, with a spasm of indescribable horror, felt about my body a terrific tightening pressure like that of a chilled and closing sh.e.l.l of steel, driving the life and breath from me.

In an instant it was clear what had happened. A creva.s.se had suddenly opened through our igloo, directly under the spot whereon I slept; and I, a helpless creature in a sleeping bag, with tumbling snow blocks and ice and snow crashing about and crushing me, with the temperature 48 below zero, was floundering in the opening sea!

LAND DISCOVERED

FIGHTING PROGRESS THROUGH CUTTING COLD AND TERRIFIC STORMS--LIFE BECOMES A MONOTONOUS ROUTINE OF HARDSHIP--THE POLE INSPIRES WITH ITS RESISTLESS LURE--NEW LAND DISCOVERED BEYOND THE EIGHTY-FOURTH PARALLEL--MORE THAN TWO HUNDRED MILES FROM SVARTEVOEG--THE FIRST SIX HUNDRED MILES COVERED

XVI

THREE HUNDRED MILES TO THE APEX OF THE WORLD

I think I was about to swoon when I felt hands beneath my armpits and heard laughter in my ears. With an adroitness such as only these natives possess, my two companions were dragging me from the water. And while I lay panting on the ice, recovering from my fright, I saw them expeditiously rescue our possessions.

It seemed that all this happened so quickly that I had really been in the water only a few moments. My two companions saw the humor of the episode and laughed heartily. Although I had been in the water only a brief time, a sheet of ice surrounded my sleeping bag. Fortunately, however, the reindeer skin was found to be quite dry when the ice was beaten off. The experience, while momentarily terrifying, was instructive, for it taught us the danger of spreading ice, especially in calms following storms.

Grat.i.tude filled my heart. I fully realized how narrow had been the escape of all of us. Had we slept a few seconds longer we should all have disappeared in the opening creva.s.se. The hungry Northland would again have claimed its human sacrifice.

The ice about was much disturbed. Numerous black lines of water opened on every side; from these oozed jets of frosty, smoke-colored vapor. The difference between the temperature of the sea and that of the air was 76. With this contrast, the open spots of ice-water appeared to be boiling.

Anxious to move along, away from the troubled angle of ice, our usual breakfast was simplified. Melting some snow, we drank the icy liquid as an eye-opener, and began our ration of a half-pound boulder of pemmican.

But with cold fingers, blue lips and no possible shelter, the stuff was unusually hard. To warm up, we prepared the sleds. Under our lashes the dogs jumped into harness with a bound. The pemmican, which we really found too hard to eat, had to be first broken into pieces with an axe.

We ground it slowly with our molars as we trudged along. Our teeth chattered while the stomach was thus being fired with durable fuel.

As we advanced the ice improved to some extent. With a little search safe crossings were found over new crevices. A strong westerly wind blew piercingly cold.

Good progress was made, but we did not forget at any time that we were invading the forbidden domains of a new polar environment.

Henceforth, one day was to be much like another. Beyond the eighty-third parallel life is devoid of any pleasure. The intense objective impressions of cold and hunger a.s.sailing the body rob even the mind of inspiration and exhilaration. Even the best day of sun and gentle wind offers no balm.

One awakes realizing the wind has abated and sees the cheerless sun veering about the side of the ice shelter. One kicks the victim upon whom, that morning, duty has fixed the misfortune to be up first--for we tried to be equals in sharing the burdens of life. And upon him to whose lot falls this hardship there is a loss of two hours' repose. He chops ice, fills the kettles, lights the fire, and probably freezes his fingers in doing so. Then he wiggles back into his bag, warms his icy hands on the bare skin of his own stomach; or, if he is in a two-man bag, and the other fellow is awake, Arctic courtesy permits the icy hands on the stomach of his bedfellow.

In due time the blood runs to the hand and he sets about tidying up the camp. First, the hood of his own bag. It is loaded with icicles and frost, the result of the freezing of his breath while asleep. He brushes off the ice and snow. The ice has settled in the kettles in the meantime. More ice must be chopped and put into the kettle. The chances are that he now breaks a commandment and steals what to us is a great luxury--a long drink of water to ease his parched throat. Because of the need of fuel economy, limit is placed on drinks.

Then the fire needs attention; the flame is imperfect and the gas hole needs cleaning. He thoughtlessly grips the little bit of metal to the end of which the priming needle is attached. That metal is so cold that it burns, and he leaves a piece of his skin on it. Then the breakfast ration of pemmican must be divided. It is not frozen, for it contains no water. But it is hard. The stuff looks like granite. Heat would melt it--but there is no fuel to spare. The two slumberers are given a thump, and their eyes open to the stone-like pemmican. Between yawns the teeth are set to grind the pemmican. The water boils, the tea is tossed in it and the kettle is removed.