The Romance of Polar Exploration Part 6

As they pa.s.sed along the great wall of ice they were amazed at seeing a crevice run into it. Arriving opposite to it, they found that it was a cleavage which went right through the ma.s.s, and they turned into it. The enormous berg had grounded and had split asunder, leaving a pa.s.sage a hundred yards long and barely twelve feet wide, the sides of which were sheer fifty feet high on either hand. Such a formation was unique, even in the Arctic regions, and the steaming through it was an adventure without a parallel.

It led them into fairly open water, and they were able to push on into Rawlings Bay before they were again beset. This time it was not the new ice but the closing in of the floes that caught them. So quickly did the ma.s.ses close in that the boats were caught and "nipped" before anything could be done to save them. The men at once scrambled out on to the ice, striving to lift the lighter boats on to the floe and unloading the provisions from the others as fast as they could, lest the crack should open again and everything be lost. The nip, however, had not been so severe as to endanger the floating capacity of the boats, but the ice had closed too firmly to allow of any hopes of their being able to force their way through. A strong wind from the north, in spite of the snow and cold it would have brought, would have been welcome; but the days were provokingly calm, and the ice only moved south at its ordinary slow rate. By August 26 they had travelled 300 miles from Fort Conger and were within fifty miles of Cape Sabine, a headland where there was a large supply of stores left by Sir George Nares in 1876. If they were able to reach there before the winter night set in, there was some chance of their existing through the dreary period which, it was now evident, they were doomed to pa.s.s in that locality. And yet the spirits of the party were as bright as though a steamer were within sight of them. One of them, in his diary, wrote: "Adversity in any form would fail, I think, to dampen the spirits of the men. Our situation is desperate. Any moment the ice may crumble beneath our feet and the sea swallow up the entire party. Still, while exercising on the ice this evening, the men danced and sang as merrily as they would have done in their own homes. They are irrepressible in the face of all this uncertainty and perhaps starvation."

The end of the month found them still beset, and with barely fifty days'

rations. The opinion was now divided as to the best course to adopt, whether to remain in the boats and wait on the off-chance of their drifting near Cape Sabine, or to take to the sledges and push on over the rough ice to the sh.o.r.e. They had been drifting for thirty miles, and only twenty now lay between them and the cape with its store of provisions. The leader was averse to leaving the boats at once, and the days dragged on until, on September 10, it was evident that the sledge journey would have to be undertaken if the sh.o.r.e was to be reached and a camp formed before the darkness set in.

Unfortunately when they did abandon the boats the weather changed, and a cold wind with driving snow came to make their struggle still more difficult. They tried at first to drag two of the boats with them, but one soon had to be abandoned and the party struggled on. Their sleeping-bags froze and filled with drifting snow so that they were able to obtain but little rest when they halted, and when they were moving they were always cold and miserable. Until September 28 they were struggling over the rough, difficult ice, and then their trials were further increased. They were nearing the sh.o.r.e, and the force of the tide, backed up by the pressure of the ice grinding along before the wind, caused the floe to crack and break up. Only by the most persistent energy and exertion were they able to get their stores and themselves on sh.o.r.e, though still some distance from Cape Sabine.

They had now travelled 500 miles since they left Fort Conger, and not only were the men considerably exhausted by their recent struggle, but winter was setting in very rapidly with constant and heavy storms. It was therefore decided to form a camp where they were, while the snow had not frozen too hard for them to get some stones for a shelter. They had been compelled, on their journey over the ice, to abandon everything in the way of covering save their sleeping-bags, and unless they built a hut of some description the rigour of the winter would inevitably be fatal to all.

Such stones as could be found were collected and built into a low wall forming a square of about sixteen feet. The stones were difficult to obtain, and the wall could only be made three feet high. An opening was left in one of the sides of the square and a pa.s.sage way constructed, so that the entrance to the interior did not open directly on to the frozen exterior. Across the top of the walls the boat they had dragged with them over the ice was laid keel uppermost, the oars being laid under it so as to maintain it in position, the open s.p.a.ces between the sides of the boat and the walls being covered with such canvas as they had.

Around the stone walls and over the top, snow was piled, and their living house was complete. It sheltered them from the wind and from the extreme bitterness of the cold, but beyond that nothing could be claimed for it. Every one had to enter it on hands and knees, and, once inside, no one could stand up, while the taller men of the party were only able to sit up in the middle of the hut where the boat made the roof slightly higher.

The men arranged their sleeping-bags against the walls with the feet towards the middle of the floor, and when they had crept in through the narrow entrance, they groped their way into the bags. Then, half lying and half sitting, with their shoulders against the stones behind them, they made themselves as comfortable as they could during the long period of darkness. They divided themselves into messes for the purpose of feeding, and two cooks prepared the food, an operation that was always difficult and unpleasant. It had, of necessity, to be carried on inside the hut, and when the two men were kneeling in a cramped-up position over the make-shift for a stove in the middle of the floor, there was no room for any one else to stretch his legs. Every one had to huddle up as closely as possible, and as all the smoke from the stove had to find its way out of the hut the best way it could, the atmosphere during cooking time was far from refreshing. The heat from the stove also thawed the ground immediately under it, and the snow on the canvas over it, with the result that the cooking of every meal meant a thorough wetting as well as a choking for the cooks.

As soon as the hut was finished, a small party pushed on towards Cape Sabine in order to locate the provisions stored there. On October 9 they returned with the news that despatches had been found, stating the _Proteus_ had foundered in the ice on July 24 just off the cape, and that the crew and relief party had started to the south so as to meet the second relief steamer _Yantic_, or a Swedish steamer which was known to be in the locality, and send on help to the Greely expedition.

The little party also discovered some provisions and the whale-boat, previously abandoned on the ice, which had drifted ash.o.r.e near the cape.

This was subsequently used as firewood when all other fuel was exhausted.

The news of the disaster to the _Proteus_ was a serious blow to the expedition, as it meant that no help would be able to reach them until the following spring at the earliest, and, in the meantime, they would be compelled to exist as best they could upon their meagre stock of provisions. The relief party who had visited the cape on their way from the wreck of the _Proteus_ had very considerably reduced the stores which the Greely party counted on finding, and when they obtained the remnants which were left, part of the bread was found to be a ma.s.s of green slimy mildew. The men had now been on reduced rations for many days, and so hungry were the members of the band sent to convey the stores from Cape Sabine to the hut that when the green mouldy stuff was thrown out by the officer in charge, the men flung themselves on to it and devoured it despite all he could do to persuade them from such a course.

The question of the strictest economy in the management of the food supplies was now a matter of life or death, and very seriously the leaders debated it. On October 26 the sun sank beneath the horizon, and in the ensuing darkness, which lasted for 110 days, there would be no chance of obtaining any game. A few blue foxes had been killed since the camp was formed, and half the number were set aside for subsequent consumption, those consumed at once being devoured to the bones, every part being put into the stew.

Meagre as the rations were, it was necessary to reduce them still further if the food was to last until the spring. By a further reduction it was calculated that the party could exist until March 1, when the available supplies would amount to ten days' rations. But no relief could possibly reach them until a couple of months later than that, and how were they to live after March 10, when the last crumb of their supplies had been consumed?

There was only one course open for them, and that was explained by the leader. On November 1, the allowance for each man would be fourteen ounces, given out every twenty-four hours, and on March 1, as soon as there was light, they would take their remaining ten days' supply and set out across the frozen straits in the forlorn hope of reaching an outlying camp of Etah Eskimo on the Greenland coast.

The terrible prospect of such a scheme to men situated as they were can scarcely be imagined. For over a month they had already been slowly starving on an amount of food for daily consumption which an ordinary man could comfortably eat at one meal, and now that amount was to be decreased to less than a pound of food a day and in a climate where the cold was so intense that water could not be kept from freezing inside the hut excepting it was over the stove. For four months they would have to face that rigid diet, suffering the pangs of starvation constantly, almost entirely in the dark, and always huddled up in the sleeping-bags against the walls of their low-roofed hut. Yet they accepted the scheme without a murmur.

Seldom have men shown themselves so absolutely courageous, for at the best it was merely slow starvation so as to be able to make an almost hopeless dash for freedom and food in four months' time. The suffering during those four months was terrible. Men, as soon as they got hold of their day's rations, were tempted to devour them at once, and so still for a time the ceaseless gnawing of their hunger; but to do so meant that in an hour's time the pain would be back again with no means of staying it until twenty-three hours had pa.s.sed. Calmly and bravely they faced the ordeal, dividing their scanty store into regular meals, and when, by an accident one of them upset his can, spilling his few mouthfuls of tea on the ground, the others contributed from their share so that he should not go entirely without. Nothing could exceed the touching fidelity which characterised their bearings, one to the other, during this period of unexampled suffering.

At Cape Isabella, a stock of 140 lbs. of meat was known to have been left by Sir George Nares, and a party of four set out in the hopes of securing it. For a week before they started they were allowed an extra ration in order to strengthen them for the trial of a journey in the dark over rough ice and with the temperature at 34 below zero. The extra ration consisted of two ounces a day.

For five days they battled their way through the darkness against a heavy wind laden with snow, and at last found the place where the food was. Piling it on their sledge, they turned back home again, and for fourteen hours laboured with it, only consuming a little warm tea during that time, for they had no means of heating more. One of the four was badly bitten by the frost, and was soon so stricken that he could not even stagger along. A piercing wind was blowing, and to save their comrade's life, the others abandoned the sledge and tried to support him. Soon two of them became exhausted, and the remaining one, Sergeant Rice, pushed on alone to the camp in order to bring help. For sixteen hours he was fighting his way over the twenty-five miles that lay between him and the hut. When he arrived there his lips were too frozen for him to be able to speak at once.

Weary and weak as the whole party was, eight of the strongest at once started off in rescue. When they picked the other three up, they found them lying under the sleeping-bag with the sick man between them, and the bag frozen so hard over them that it had to be cut open before they could be got out. Then they resumed their way to the camp, which they reached after forty-four hours' absence, in which time they had covered forty miles.

The frost-bitten man, Elison, was almost dead, his face, feet, and hands being absolutely frozen, but so determined were they all to survive as long as possible that he was tended with all the care they could command. He was kept alive in spite of his sufferings, which, during the first week after his rescue, were so severe that he daily called on his comrades to end his misery.

Meanwhile the memory of the abandoned sledge laden with meat was constantly in the minds of the starving men, whose hunger was now so great that in the darkness after the lamp was put out--economy compelled them to use it only for cooking--men crept to the stove and devoured any rancid fat left in the lamp. But still discipline held them together, and they made no mention of their sufferings to one another. The success of the journey across the ice on March 1 was what they looked forward to, and with the arrival of that date they believed their sufferings would be over.

On January 18 the first one of the party to die pa.s.sed away, really of starvation, although the men, to keep the ugly word away from their minds, accepted the doctor's statement that it was of an effusion of water at the heart that the man had died. His end made a deep impression on the gallant little band, all the same, and by the beginning of February several more men were in a critical condition, including Lieutenant Lockwood, who refused to accept an extra ration of two ounces a day from the diminished stores.

Sergeant Rice, accompanied by the Eskimo Jens, made a plucky effort to reach Littleton Island, where an outlying camp of Eskimo might be found; but Jens could not stand the journey, and, five days after starting, they returned. Every one was now impressed with the necessity of husbanding their energies for the great effort to be made on the first day of March, and as February slowly pa.s.sed away, the emaciated creatures grew enthusiastic as they sought to cheer one another up by detailing the tremendous feasts they would have when they returned to civilisation. At length the first of March dawned, and the brave hearts, which had kept up so long against starvation and despair, shrank before the terrible blow they received. The ice had broken, and open water rolled where they had planned to cross on the ice. Nothing was said, for the courage of the men was only equalled by their consideration for one another, but the effect of the great disappointment sank deep into the minds of many.

The food remaining was eked out through the month with the aid of some blue foxes and a ptarmigan, which were eaten to the bones, and April found them with only a few days even of the starvation rations remaining. Several of the men were so weak that they could barely turn over in their sleeping-bags. The Eskimo Frederick was found dead in his bag, and another of the little party followed the next day. Then Sergeants Rice and Fredericks insisted on making an effort to reach the meat abandoned when Elison was frost-bitten. It is difficult to understand why the effort had not been made before; but many errors of judgment are conspicuous after a campaign which are not so apparent in the moment of struggle.

Now that it was made it failed, through the cold freezing wind penetrating the starved bodies of the two men. Rice, who throughout the terrible ordeal of their captivity had never spared himself, was the first to feel it. A strong wind was blowing, bringing down heavy snow squalls. Suddenly Rice began to talk wildly and then staggered.

Fredericks grasped him by the arm and tried to keep him up, but the cold and starvation had too tight a hold upon their victim. He vainly endeavoured to pull himself together, but only for a moment; then he sank down on the snow, babbling about the feast he was going to enjoy.

His comrade tried to restore him by giving him some of the stimulants they had with them, and did not hesitate to strip off his own fur coat to lay upon the other, sitting the while, holding his hands, and exposed to all the biting fury of the Arctic wind, in his shirt sleeves. But everything was useless; Rice was too worn out and too weak to fight further, and died as he faintly talked of the food he fancied he was eating.

The shock to Fredericks was almost overwhelming, for he was miles away from the camp, chilled to the bone, and with only a little coffee and spirits of ammonia to revive his own drooping vitality. Yet he would not leave his dead comrade until he had reverently laid him in a shallow resting-place in the snow, though it almost cost him his life to pay this last tribute.

When he at last managed to reach the camp with his sad tidings he was almost gone, and the news he brought plunged every one into the lowest depths of sorrow, for Rice had always been one of the bravest and best of the party. Those who were able to do so, attended to Fredericks and revived him.

To those who were weakest the end of Rice was a fatal blow, and the next day or so saw three or four pa.s.s away, one of whom was the intrepid Lockwood. A very few more days and all would have gone but for a gleam of good fortune. A young bear was killed, and the 400 pounds of meat obtained from it was the salvation of the survivors.

Several seals were seen in the straits and a few walrus, and all who could still handle a gun were daily striving to obtain fresh supplies for the larder. Eskimo Jens, who hunted a.s.siduously, succeeded in killing a small seal; but in a chase after another his kayak was injured in the ice and he was drowned.

After his death only misfortune attended the hunting, and, failing to replenish their stock of game, they were reduced to such a terrible plight that they had only the thick skin of the seal on which to subsist. Even this fare was carefully divided and measured out, so that life might be maintained as long as possible in case a relief vessel came. One day it was found that somebody was stealing. All the party was a.s.sembled, but no one would admit the theft. It was decided that the thief should be shot if discovered. One man, being suspected, was watched. He was caught and executed.

A fortnight later, the last few square inches of the seal's skin was gone, and the men, now little more than living skeletons, lay in their sleeping-bags looking at one another with hollow eyes, wondering, perhaps, who would be the last to go, when a steamer's whistle sounded over the straits.

At first they dared not trust their ears. It must have been a gull crying, or a bear, they said, and the only man with strength enough to crawl crept out to see. The others lay where they were, straining their ears to catch again the sound which had so moved them, but the minutes pa.s.sed on in silence. The man who had gone out did not come back, and their hopes fell. No one spoke, for it was too plain they had been deceived, and a profound silence reigned. Then they heard a great shouting, and before their minds could understand how it was done, they were surrounded by men of their own race, who were administering restoratives as quickly as they dared.

The _Thetis_, commanded by Captain Schley, of the United States Navy, had reached them, and so, on June 23, 1884, the survivors of the Greely expedition were saved.

CHAPTER VII

PEARY IN GREENLAND

The Greenland Question--Departure of the _Kite_--Peary breaks his Leg--A Camp made--Habits of the Eskimo--A Brush with Walrus--"Caching" Food--An Arctic Christmas Feast--Peary starts for the Great Ice-Cap--A Snow Sahara--The Ice-Cap Crossed--A Marvellous Discovery--Sails on Sledges--A Safe Return.

The disaster and suffering which characterised the termination of the Greely and _Polaris_ expeditions did not tend to recommend Arctic exploration as a national enterprise to the Government of the United States. A vast amount of highly valuable information had been obtained, not only by these expeditions, but also by the expedition sent out by the British Government under the command of Sir George Nares. And, in addition to the information, a further knowledge had been gained, the knowledge that the same spirit of indomitable pluck, the same tireless energy, and the same loyalty and devotion to duty dominated both branches of the great English-speaking race. The magnificent heroism displayed by the explorers from the _Alert_ and _Discovery_ found a parallel in the later experiences and exploits of the American expeditions, and both British and American Governments felt that, for a time at least, they were justified in resting on the laurels their gallant sons had won.

But if the Governments were satisfied, the restless spirit of the race could not remain quiet while secrets still remained in the keeping of the frozen North. The Pole was still untouched, and, more than that, there were secrets to be wrested from localities not quite so remote.

The discoveries along the north coast of Greenland opened up the very interesting question whether the land did not extend right up to the Pole itself. As far as any one had penetrated to the north of the coast, land was still to be seen farther on; it was an open question whether this great ice-covered country was an island, with its northern sh.o.r.es swept by the Polar ice-floes, or whether it extended almost to the dimensions of a continent in the Polar region.

The problem appealed strongly to two explorers whose names, by reason of their exploits during recent years, have become familiar. They are Nansen and Peary. The former, by his dash for the Pole, during which he surpa.s.sed all previous records of the "farthest North," has dwarfed his Greenland performances; the latter, by his journey of 1300 miles over the ice-crowned interior of Greenland, decided the insular character of the country. It is that journey which forms the subject of this chapter.

Lieutenant Robert E. Peary, an officer in the engineering department of the United States Navy, failing to obtain Government support for his scheme of an overland journey to the northern coast of Greenland, was supported by the Philadelphia Academy of National Science. The expedition was necessarily small, but that did not affect its utility.

It was, moreover, unique, by the inclusion of Lieutenant Peary's wife as one of its members; the account which she has given of her sojourn in high lat.i.tudes is one of the most interesting of books on the Arctic regions.

The party left New York on June 6, 1891, on board the steamer _Kite_, for Whale Sound, on the north-west coast of Greenland. The voyage was satisfactory in every way until June 24, when an unfortunate accident befell the leader.

The _Kite_ had encountered some ice which was heavy enough to check her progress, and, to get through it, the captain had to ram his ship. This necessitated a constant change from going ahead to going astern, and, as there was a good deal of loose ice floating about, the rudder frequently came into collision with it when the vessel was backing. Lieutenant Peary, who was on deck during one of these manoeuvres, went over to the wheelhouse to see how the rudder was bearing the strain. As he stood behind the wheelhouse, the rudder struck a heavy piece of ice and was forcibly jerked over, the tiller, as it swung, catching Lieutenant Peary by the leg and pinning him against the wall of the house. There was no escape from the position, and the pressure of the tiller gradually increased until the bone of the leg snapped.

The doctor, who formed one of the party, immediately set the limb; but the sufferer refused to return home, and when, a few days later, the _Kite_ reached McCormick Bay, he was carried ash.o.r.e strapped to a plank.

The material for a comfortably-sized house was part of the outfit of the expedition, and this was in course of erection the day that Lieutenant Peary was landed. For the accommodation of himself and wife, a tent was put up behind the half-completed house, and, as a high wind arose, the remainder of the party returned on board the _Kite_.

As the hours pa.s.sed away the wind became stronger. The tent swayed to and fro, and Mrs. Peary, as she sat beside her invalid and sleeping husband, realised what it was to be lonely and helpless. She and her husband were the only people on sh.o.r.e for miles; her husband was unable to move, and she was without even a revolver with which to defend herself. What, she asked herself, would be the result if a bear came into the tent? She could not make the people on board the _Kite_ hear, and she was without a weapon. Throughout the stay in the North, Mrs.