The Romance of Polar Exploration Part 9

And so the first winter pa.s.sed, the members of the expedition keeping not alone in good temper and spirits, but in good health also. There was always something doing; observations of temperature and ice movements to be taken, and records to be kept of the atmospheric and astronomical phenomena, on the scientific side; and on the every-day side of life, there were meals to get ready, stores to be overhauled and distributed, dogs to be fed, and a dozen other items to attend to. One of the happiest features of this expedition was the sincere and thorough good-fellowship which existed between all the members. Some of them took turn about in the cook's galley, each one trying to produce some dish which would come as a surprise to the mess and a variety to the usual bill of fare. Then they were excellently supplied with books to read and indoor games to fill in the odd hours of leisure. A newspaper was started, and although it was somewhat deficient in foreign news, there was plenty of local intelligence to keep it going until the return of the sun. Inside the cabin there was constantly heard the hearty laugh as some jest pa.s.sed round, and under the illumination of the electric light and the spell of good-fellowship, but little heed was paid to the constant noise made outside in the darkness of the Arctic night by the ever-moving ice.

When the sun's approach was heralded by a gradually increasing twilight, every one was full of curiosity to learn how far they had drifted in the ice during the winter, and whether the current had maintained its northerly direction. There was no chance of proving that during the long hours of darkness, and when, with the appearance of the sun above the horizon, observations were taken to verify calculations already made, with the result that a great advance to the North was shown, there was general rejoicing. If the direction were maintained during the coming summer and the following winter, it was not impossible that in a year's time the _Fram_ might be drifting over the very Pole itself. The flag of Norway was run up to the masthead in honour of the occasion, and at the supper-table speeches were made foreshadowing the glory which would be won if the direction of the current were maintained.

With the return of sunlight a great deal had to be done in the verification of the observations taken during the winter. As the weather became warmer it was possible to penetrate through the ice so as to enable them to take soundings as to the depth of the sea. Photographs of the ice-field were taken, so as to form companion pictures of what it was before and after the winter pressure had been exerted, and short expeditions by dog-sledge and snow-shoes (_ski_, as the Norwegian form is termed) were taken. A bear track was seen one day, but as Bruin did not seem desirous of approaching the ship, Captain Sverdrup, who commanded the vessel, set to work and devised a highly ingenious trap for him. The trap was fixed up on a hummock in the vicinity, where it could be watched from the _Fram_, but where it would be quiet enough to tempt the bear. A strong-smelling bait was fastened to it, so that when the bear seized the bait he would spring the jaws of the trap and get caught round the neck. Then, when all was ready, a constant watch was kept for Bruin to appear. He came when every one was about the ship, and as he was seen slouching over the hummocks, all eyes were turned upon him. Scenting the bait, he quickened his steps and went up to the trap, holding his head high up and sniffing for the bait. Having caught sight of it, he walked slowly round the trap until he came opposite the bait again, when he slowly rose on to his hind-legs and reached out for the morsel. Every one on board held their breath in antic.i.p.ation of seeing him caught, but there was something about the concern which aroused his suspicions. Probably he had never seen such an animal before and doubted its quality, for he drew his head back, lowered himself on to all-fours, and slowly trotted away. The bear-trap was no success for killing bears, but it afforded excellent entertainment during this occasion, and formed a never-failing source of good-natured chaff afterwards.

As the short summer pa.s.sed, the drift turned persistently to the west, and in view of its continuing in that direction, preparations were made for a dash by sledge to the North in the following period of sunlight.

The framework of two kayaks were on board, and these were brought out and put together on the ice alongside the vessel. When they were covered with skins, they were packed on two light sledges, and experiments were made as to the amount of provisions that could be stored on the sledges in addition. With a third sledge for stores, it was found that twenty-eight dogs would be able to drag enough food to last two men for one hundred days and the dogs thirty days, besides the kayaks, guns, ammunition, and other necessaries.

It was a critical venture to undertake, for once the sledge party left the ship and journeyed to the North, it was almost an absolute impossibility that they would be able to find the ship again. All they would be able to do was to go as far as they could and then turn back again, shaping their course to the Spitzbergen Islands, where it was antic.i.p.ated the _Fram_ would eventually drift. Whether they would be able to traverse the distance before their food gave out, and whether they would be able to replenish their provisions by shooting game, were two very important problems, and, in addition, there was also the question how they would be able to withstand the intense cold of the winter if compelled to spend it on the ice.

As the darkness set in again, the discussion frequently turned to the prospects of the dash being successful. Nansen decided that he should be one of the two, selecting Lieutenant Hjalmar Johansen, of the Norwegian Navy, as his companion. Lieutenant Johansen had joined the expedition as stoker, subsequently acting as the meteorological a.s.sistant, and his choice by the leader was amply justified by results.

The winter having pa.s.sed without mishap, the reappearance of the sun verified the fears as to the direction of the drift. All through the winter they had travelled more to the West than the North. The dash by sledge was imperative.

On March 14, 1895, the two adventurers, with their three sledges, two kayaks, and twenty-eight dogs, bade adieu to their comrades, who had come out a part of the way with them from the _Fram_, and started due north along the 100th parallel of East longitude. The _Fram_ had already drifted to the 84th parallel of lat.i.tude, farther North than had yet been attained.

[Ill.u.s.tration: NANSEN AND JOHANSEN START ON THEIR DASH FOR THE POLE.

On March 14, 1895, they left the _Fram_, and returned to Norway in the _Windward_ on August 13, 1895, having reached 86 14' N. lat., the highest point, up to that time, attained by man.]

For the first few days travelling was slow, heavy, and laborious, the ice being excessively rough and rugged. Time after time the two men had to haul the sledges, one after another, over the broken hummocks; but always at the end of each period of travel when they formed their camp, the Pole was nearer. On March 22 they reached 85 10' N. lat. The ice they were journeying over now was not only rough but was constantly moving, the noise being incessant as the ma.s.ses ground and strained against one another. But still they pushed on, taking such rest as they could and working hard, when not in camp, from the moment they started until the moment the camp was made. On April 7 they had reached 86 14'

N. lat., the highest point ever, up to that time, attained by man, and only some two hundred miles from the Pole.

The ice was indescribably rugged and broken, necessitating the lifting of the sledges at almost every yard; the temperature averaged 40 below zero; their clothes were frozen into hard suits of mail, and their sleeping-bags were also frozen stiff. They had to sleep in the frozen bags out in the open, the temperature once being as low as 49 below zero. They had reached the "farthest North," and had learned enough to satisfy them that up to the Pole there was nothing but a continuation of the broken, rugged ice, straining and breaking under the pressure of the drift, and they decided to turn back, making towards the nearest land for winter quarters.

This was Franz Josef Land, lying to the south-west of where they were, and if they reached it in time to pa.s.s the winter on sh.o.r.e, they would be able, they believed, to resume their journey to Spitzbergen in the following summer. Arrived there, they did not antic.i.p.ate any difficulty in getting home on board a Norwegian whaler, if the _Fram_ had not meantime arrived.

They were now travelling in continual daylight, with a task before them every hour of surmounting the steep sides of hummocks. For hours they toiled on, making as much progress as they could between the camps. The work they were performing was scarcely, one would think, likely to make them forget when it was time to sleep. And yet there was an occasion when for thirty-six hours they struggled on without a sleep. The food for the dogs was daily growing scarcer, and they were anxious to get on as far as possible before it was finished. When, therefore, they came upon a stretch of fairly smooth ice, they made the most of it, and only when they and their dogs were dead tired did they stop. It was their custom to always wind up their watches when they crept into their sleeping-bag; on this occasion when they took them from under their heavy clothing they discovered that both had stopped. In their anxiety to push forward they had forgotten to wind them up, and the springs had run down during the thirty-six hours. There was nothing to do but guess at what the time ought to be, and so they overcame this difficulty as they overcame all others, by making the best of it.

Their next trouble was the failure of the dog food. When the first dog died they kept him, for unless they fell in with a bear and killed it, the bodies of the weaker dogs was all that they could give the stronger ones to keep them alive. At first the dogs turned away from the remains of their comrade, but soon their hunger overcame their scruples, and the ravenous creatures fought over the carcase as soon as it was offered to them. Then came the necessity of killing one of them every now and again to feed the others; much as it went against their natures to do it, the explorers had to choose between it and death to themselves.

By the end of April they expected to reach land, but April pa.s.sed and May pa.s.sed, and still only the rugged ice was in view. One by one the dogs had to be sacrificed until only two remained. The weight of the sledges was also very considerably reduced by this time. The third sledge had been abandoned, and now each man, a.s.sisted by one dog, dragged a sledge on which rested his kayak, his _ski_, firearms, and other necessaries, as well as a moiety of the remaining stores. June came in and still no land was in sight, but the character of the ice was changing, though not very much for the better. It was not so rugged and hummocky, but it was frequently intersected by channels mostly full of floating pieces. It was useless taking to the kayaks to cross them, and often impossible to go round, so they adopted the method of jumping from piece to piece, and drawing their sledges after them. On June 22 they came upon a seal, which they succeeded in shooting and securing, a fact which was so memorable that they rested for a day, giving the dogs an ample supply of the meat. But the rest was scarcely idleness, for they were visited by three bears, all of which also fell under bullets. They now had abundance of food, both for themselves and the dogs, to last a few weeks if they did not come in sight of the land. Two days later, however, they saw it, lying ahead of them, and they pushed on till a wide, open channel stopped them.

It was evident that the kayaks would have to be used in getting across, and they were taken from the sledges and examined. The result of the rough handling they had undergone in the journey over the ice was manifest in many a crack and hole in the skin-covering, but how to repair them was a question which taxed even the ingenuity and enterprise of the two intrepid Nors.e.m.e.n. They had enough skins to make patches, and twine with which to st.i.tch them on. It was the making of some waterproof coating for the st.i.tch-holes that puzzled them. They possessed a little train-oil, and by fixing up an arrangement over their spirit cooking stove, they obtained a little soot, which was mixed with the oil and used as paint. It was not a very artistic compound, but it was the best they could make, and it kept the water out. Then the kayaks were carefully fastened together by the _ski_, and upon them was laid the sledges and the stores.

When everything had been made fast, the explorers prepared to launch them. Johansen was behind Nansen, and stooping down, when he heard something moving at his back. Thinking it was only one of the dogs, he did not look round, and the next thing he knew was that something hit him beside the head, so that, in his own words, "he saw fireworks." He fell forward, and immediately felt a heavy body upon him. He managed to turn partly round, and saw just above his face the head of a huge bear.

Nansen, ignorant of what had occurred, was bending over his end of the kayak, when he heard Johansen exclaim, "Get a gun." Glancing round, he saw his comrade lying under the bear, gripping its throat with both hands.

With everything securely tied to the kayaks, it was no easy matter to extricate the weapon, and Nansen was pulling and tugging at the cords to get them loose, so as to drag the rifle from its place, when he heard Johansen say, "You will have to hurry if you don't want to be too late."

The two dogs, all that were left of the twenty-eight, were standing snarling at the bear, and as Johansen spoke the one which always travelled with him approached nearer. The bear, having his attention for the moment distracted, stepped off Johansen, who immediately wriggled away and scrambled to his feet. Just as the bear turned on to the dog, Nansen wrenched a gun from the piled-up stores. Swinging round, he found the bear close beside him, and he pulled the first trigger he touched.

It fired the barrel loaded with shot, but so near was the bear that the charge entered behind the ear without having time to scatter, and brought him down dead between Nansen and Johansen.

The former was terribly afraid that his companion had been seriously injured, but the only mark the bear had left was a streak across the face where the dirt had been sc.r.a.ped away. As they had not washed their faces since they left the _Fram_, there was a thick covering of dirt on them, and the bear's claw, as it pa.s.sed over Johansen's face, had sc.r.a.ped this away, leaving the white skin to show through. The bear was a mother, and had two cubs following it. The explorers took away the skin and some of the meat, the cubs meanwhile standing some distance away whining and growling. A shot was fired which wounded one, whereupon they made off, though only to return and follow the travellers in the distance, until a wide, long channel turned them back.

When the stores had been repacked, the two men, with the two dogs, entered the kayaks and paddled away down the channel, landing some hours later on the other side. The land they had first seen appeared to be the outlying point of an island, but growing mists obscured it for a day or so, and in the meantime they were somewhat puzzled to locate it. The fact that their watches had stopped earlier on the journey made them uncertain as to the exact locality they were in. The direction in which they had noticed the land, and its appearance, also puzzled them, for there was no land marked on their map at the place where they believed they were. Possibly they might be near a hitherto undiscovered island, and with that thought uppermost in their minds they hastened forward as quickly as the broken character of the ice would allow. For the remainder of June, and the whole of July, they were battling against broken ice and irregular channels, and the distance covered was as nothing compared with the amount of toil experienced. The land, whenever it appeared, was still unlike anything previously recorded, for it now seemed to be of considerable extent.

On August 6 they came upon a stretch of open water, on the other side of which they saw four islands, the heights of which were covered with glacier. They determined that they would winter on the sh.o.r.e of one of the four, and the kayaks were launched and laden with everything for the journey across the open water. It was more perilous than merely crossing channels in the ice, and when they had stored all their provisions, weapons, and other necessaries on the two frail little craft, they found that it would not be safe to carry the dogs as well. But they could not bring themselves to leave the faithful creatures on the ice; they elected rather to shoot them, scanty as their supply of ammunition was, and upon this decision they acted, each one shooting the dog which had been the other's comrade. It was the saddest task that their difficulties had imposed upon them, and only the absolute necessity for their safety and the completion of their journey induced them to do it.

Sailing down the open water, they skirted along the coast of the strange land, on the lookout for a favourable spot to pitch their camp. As soon as they came to a place which recommended itself to them, they ran ash.o.r.e and landed their kayaks and stores. The place was merely a barren, rocky coast, sheltered somewhat by the high ground behind, but without a trace of vegetation. On the beach one piece of drift-wood was found. In addition, there were plenty of small boulders, but such material was scarcely sufficient for the building of a hut in which to pa.s.s the dreary, cold, dark winter.

They overhauled their stores, and found they possessed two guns, some cartridges, a small hatchet, and two knives. With the hatchet, after considerable labour, they cut through the piece of drift-wood, and rejoiced in the possession of a suitable ridge-pole for the centre of the roof. Stones were collected and built into a low wall, within which all their property, except the guns, kayaks, and knives, was placed.

Then, with the unstored articles, they set out along the coast and the floating ice to seek the wherewithal to complete the house.

Walrus was the first essential, for the hide would afford a covering for the roof, the blubber would furnish fuel for the stove, and the meat would be useful as food. They spied two lying at the edge of a piece of ice, and approaching with the utmost caution, succeeded in shooting both. Their weight, however, as they fell over, caused them to slide from the ice, and they were in the water before the men could reach them. They secured the carcases, so as to prevent them from either sinking or drifting away, and essayed to haul them up on to the ice again so as to remove the hides and blubber. But the combined strength of the two men was insufficient to pull one of the huge carcases up on to the ice again, and they were compelled to strip the skin and blubber off as the walrus lay in the water. This necessitated their lying upon the floating carcases, and by the time the operation was completed, their already travel-stained clothing was rendered still more uncomfortable by being saturated with blood and fat.

Returning to the camp with their walrus hides and blubber, they explored the ridge lying behind the spot, and were fortunate in finding some moss, which they carefully gathered and carried away to a.s.sist in the building of the hut. The walls they had made of the stones allowed for an internal s.p.a.ce of about ten feet long by not quite six feet wide. The crevices between the stones they filled in with moss and gravel, and then stretching the walrus hides over the ridge-pole, they weighted them down with more stones. Over all of it they heaped snow and ice, and in order to avoid suffocation by the smoke of their blubber cooking stove, they constructed an ice-chimney, which, however, did not always carry off the smoke, while it frequently thawed at the base, and made the interior very draughty. Their guns, _ski_, and other articles and stores, they placed inside the hut, leaving the kayaks outside; and when everything was stored conveniently, they built a wall as a screen to keep the wind from out of the door, and hung a curtain of skins across the doorway. The floor of the hut was composed of stones which no ingenuity of theirs could render smooth or even, and upon it their sleeping-bag, the fur of which was almost worn entirely away, was stretched.

As soon as the hut was finished the two set out on foot in search of bears for winter provisions, and were happy in finding sufficient to enable them to fill their larder with enough meat to last them well into the following summer. This they stored on the top of the hut, and during the long winter night they often heard foxes over their heads gnawing at the frozen ma.s.s. They had not enough cartridges to waste on shooting them, and as there was more meat than they would want, they let the foxes feed in peace. Bear's meat, fried at night and boiled in the morning, was the only food they had; when the long dark night set in, with the temperature inside the hut barely above freezing point, they lay in their sleeping-bag side by side, generally for twenty-two hours out of the twenty-four. The inside of the walrus-hide roof became covered with frost and ice, upon which the black from the blubber-fed stove settled; the stone floor was so uneven that they gave up trying to make it smooth, and lay as comfortably as they could under the circ.u.mstances, with their feet nearly touching one side of the hut and their heads the other. From November until the following March they were undisturbed, except by the sounds of the foxes on the roof and the howling of the wind, and a picturesque glimpse is given by Nansen of their life in his diary entry made on December 24, 1895, when the temperature inside the hut was 11 below zero.

"And this is Christmas Eve; cold and blowy out of doors, and cold and draughty indoors. How desolate it is here! We have never had such a Christmas before. The bells are now ringing in the Christmas festival at home; I can hear the sound of them swinging out through the air from the church towers. How beautiful it sounds! Now the candles are being lit on the Christmas trees, and flocks of children are let in and dance round in exuberant glee. Must have a Christmas party for children when I get home. We, too, are keeping the festival in our little way. Johansen has turned his shirt, and has put the outer one inside. I have done the same, and have changed my drawers as well, and put on the others which I had wrung out in warm water. And then I have washed myself in a quarter of a cup of warm water, using the discarded drawers as sponge and towel.

I feel like a new being; my clothes do not stick to my body as much as they did. Then for supper we had fish 'gratin,' made of potted fish and Indian meal, with train-oil for b.u.t.ter--fried or boiled both equally dry--and as sweets we had bread fried in train-oil. To-morrow morning we are going to have chocolate and bread."

Where a turned shirt and a bath in a tea-cup formed the physical luxuries, and bread fried in train-oil and chocolate comprised the feast, in celebration of Christmas Day, it is not difficult to picture the amount of enjoyment available for every-day use, nor is it difficult to understand that they sighed even for a railway time-table to peruse.

But yet they kept their health, their spirits, and their tempers. The rough stones under their sleeping-bag seem to have been the only thing they could not turn into a jest. When one snored too loudly to allow the other to sleep, it was only necessary for the victim to move; they lay so close together for warmth that a movement was equal to a dig in the back, and that meant waking the snorer by changing his position on the k.n.o.bbly boulders from ease to discomfort.

At length the approach of the sun became manifest by the gradually brightening twilight, and the arrival of a flock of little auks reminded them that spring was at hand. They celebrated the occasion by boiling their clothes, one article at a time, in the only pot they possessed, and then sc.r.a.ping the grease and dirt from them by the aid of a knife, so as to render them soft enough for travelling, as it was beyond the question to get them clean. The sooty smoke from the winter's cooking had thoroughly begrimed their faces, and all they could do to get clean was first to try and sc.r.a.pe the dirt off with the knife, and then rub themselves all over with bear's grease and wipe it off with moss.

By the middle of May the water along the sh.o.r.e was sufficiently open to permit of their starting in the kayaks on the journey which they expected would end at Spitzbergen. On May 19, 1896, they bade adieu to their winter camp, having packed everything on the kayaks, which they fastened together for convenience and stability. Sometimes they had to get out on to the ice which blocked the channel and drag the kayaks over to the open water on the other side; sometimes they sailed and sometimes they paddled. They pa.s.sed numbers of walrus lying on the ice, the great monsters paying no heed to them whatever. Once they landed on a ma.s.s of ice which rose high out of the water, in order to climb to the top of it and examine the coast line, for they were still in very great doubt whether they were off the sh.o.r.e of a hitherto undiscovered island or not.

They made the kayaks fast to a projecting piece of ice, and together climbed up to the top of the hummocks. As they reached the summit they looked back to the spot where they had left the kayaks, and were horrified to see them adrift. Already they were some distance away from the ice, and, being tied together, they were going rapidly down the channel. For a moment the sight held the two men motionless, for the kayaks represented their only means of escape. Everything beyond the clothes in which they stood was stored on board, and to be left on the ice without food, arms, or shelter, was almost certain death.

There was only one desperate means of salvation, and that Nansen took.

Dashing down the hummock, he plunged into the ice-cold water and struck out after the retreating kayaks.

Weighted by his stiff, heavy, grease-sodden clothes, he had the utmost difficulty in swimming at all; but there was a greater handicap even than his clothes in the low temperature of the water. It struck through him with a chill which reached to his bones, numbing his muscles, and making his joints lose their suppleness. The breeze which was blowing helped the kayaks along, but only increased his discomfort. Soon he felt that the fight was only a matter of minutes for as the coldness numbed him more and more, he realised that unless he overtook the kayaks quickly he would go to the bottom like a stone. The cold penetrated to his lungs, so that he gasped for breath; his hands and feet lost all feeling, and his eyes were growing blurred as he nerved himself for a final desperate struggle. Swimming as hard as his strength of will and muscle could command, he succeeded in coming within touch of the light drifting craft. The fact that the two were fastened together was of the utmost importance under the circ.u.mstances, for had they been separate he could never have clambered into one in his benumbed and exhausted condition. As it was, he managed to get one arm over the _ski_ which formed the coupling between the kayaks. His hands were too cold to grip and he hung for a few seconds resting, till the growing chill in his limbs warned him of the danger he was in of becoming frozen. With a superb effort of determination, he raised himself until he was able to lift a leg over the side of one of the kayaks, and then struggled on board, where he lay for a minute or so trying to recover his breath.

Still fearing the cold, he grasped a paddle and set to work vigorously to force the kayaks back to the ice on which Johansen was standing. The exertion caused his blood to circulate once more, and, by the time he had reached the ice, the deadly chill was out of his frame. There were no dry clothes to put on in place of his wet ones, and all that could be done was to wring them out, and then, working hard to keep up his circulation, wait till they dried on his back.

In order to prevent another such occurrence, the kayaks were freed from each other, Nansen occupying one with half the provisions and stores, and Johansen the other. Two days after the break away they had reason to be thankful they had made this arrangement. They were skirting along the ice at the time, and suddenly came upon a herd of walrus. Instead of quietly watching them go past, as was usually the case, a huge bull slid off the ice with a roar, and swam rapidly towards Nansen's kayak.

Diving as he came near to it, Nansen antic.i.p.ated that he intended rising immediately underneath it, and so capsizing it. He therefore paddled as hard as he could, when the walrus rose by his side. It reared high out of the water, towering over the kayak and its occupant, and only by the quickest of manoeuvres was Nansen able to avoid having it fall upon him.

Baulked in that attempt, the walrus swam alongside and, plunging its tusks through the frail covering of the kayak, strove to upset it with its flipper.

Nansen swung his paddle in the air, and bringing it down with all his strength on the monster's head, caused it again to rear in the water.

Paddling furiously directly the brute's tusks were withdrawn, he managed to elude it till it sank, when he made for the ice, reaching it just in time, the water having almost swamped the kayak through the holes the walrus had made with his tusks.

When the damaged kayak was taken out of the water, the injury was found to be more extensive than at first supposed. The two explorers determined to stay where they were for a few days, so as to thoroughly overhaul and repair their kayaks, and have a good rest before commencing the difficult journey which was to be negotiated before they could arrive at Spitzbergen. They made as comfortable a camp as they could on the ice, and, after supper, got into the sleeping-bag and rested peacefully. Nansen was first awake, and, having crept out of the bag, set to work preparing breakfast. It was ready before Johansen was, and not wishing to disturb his comrade, Nansen put on his _ski_ and set out for a "const.i.tutional" over the ice. He had not proceeded far when he heard a sound which made his heart jump. It was the bark of a dog.

Hurrying back, he told Johansen, and then set out in the direction whence the sound had come, in search of, as he believed, a whaling ship.

He had not gone very far when he saw in the distance two moving specks.

There was evidently a whaler in the neighbourhood, he told himself, and redoubled his efforts. As he approached the two specks they became clearer, until he saw distinctly that one was a man and the other a dog.

The man noticed him and waved his hat, to which Nansen replied by waving his; as they came nearer, he heard the man speak to his dog in English.

"How do you do?" he said to Nansen when they met.

"How do you do?" Nansen answered, as they shook hands. "Are you wintering near here?"