True Tales of Arctic Heroism in the New World Part 14

They now faced a situation of extraordinary if not of imminent peril. It was barely possible that they might reach the coast, six miles distant, but that was to face starvation, as everything must be abandoned for a cross-floe march. If the sh.o.r.e was reached it was well known to be ice-clad and desolate, as there were to be found neither natives nor land game along the narrow strips of rocky, ice-free beach which stretches from sea-glacier to sea-glacier on this seemingly accursed coast.

The only chances of life were in the shifting and uncertain forces of nature--a cold winter to keep the ice-field intact, a stormless season to save their floe from breaking up under pressures, and the usual Greenland current to set them to the south. With good fortune they might hope to get into open water seven months hence, when by their boats they could possibly reach the Danish settlements of West Greenland. But could they live seven months through a winter barely begun? At least they would do their best. They were fourteen men, all good and true, in health, skilled to the sea, inured to hardships and privations, accustomed to discipline, and inspired by a spirit of comradeship.

Their floe had been wasted at its edges by the enormous pressure, as well as by the action of the sea, so that they were thankful for Hegemann's foresight in placing the coal house remote from the ocean.

All that sailor ingenuity could plan was now done to make life healthy and comfortable in their ark of safety. Outer snow walls were erected so that there was a free walk around the main house, giving also a place for the protection of stores against storms and shelter for daily exercise. From their flag-staff was displayed on fine days a flag, emblem of their love for their country, of their faith in themselves, and of aspiration and uplifting courage in hours of danger.

The hunt engaged their activities whenever signs of game were noted.

Once a bear and her cub came from the land, and the mother was slain and added to their larder. An effort was made to keep the cub as a kind of pet. After a while she escaped and was caught swimming across a narrow lane of water. To keep her secure they fastened her to an ice-anchor, where she was at first very much frightened, but later she ate with avidity such meat as was thrown to her. To add to her comfort a snow house was built, with the floor strewed with shavings for her bed, but the record runs: "The young bear, as a genuine inhabitant of the arctic seas, despised the hut and bed, preferring to camp in the snow." Some days later she disappeared, and with the heavy chain doubtless sank to the bottom of the sea.

Nor were these castaways unmindful of the charms of arctic nature. Their narratives tell us of the common beauties around them--the snow-crystals glittering in the few hours of sunlight like millions of tiny diamonds.

Night scenes were even more impressive, through wondrous views of the starry constellations and the recurring and evanescent gleams of the mystical aurora. Under the weird auroral light the white snow took at times a peculiar greenish tint, and with it, says an officer, "One could read the finest writing without trouble. One night it shone so intensely that the starlight waned and objects on our field cast shadows." But in its main aspects life on the ice-pack was full of dread in which nervous anxiety largely entered.

The barren peaks and rounded snow-capped land ma.s.ses of the Greenland coast were usually in sight, and once they were astonished as they walked to see thousands of tiny leaves, possibly of the arctic willow, flying about them, signs of a snow-free fiord not far distant. Again the newly fallen snow for a considerable distance was covered with a reddish matter which Dr. Laube thought must be of volcanic origin carried through the air from Iceland two hundred miles away.

Of interest to the party were the visits of foxes, who came from the near-by land. Of the first it is said: "With tails high in air they shot over the ice-field like small craft sailing before the wind. For the first moment it seemed as if the wind had caught up a couple of large semicircles of whitish yellow paper and was wafting them along." One was shot as a specimen, but the later visitor in the middle of December was better treated. We are told that "the fox, white with a black-tipped tail, was particularly confiding, even bold. He scratched up the bear flesh buried in the snow, and carried it off to eat as we approached. He then quite unconcernedly took a walk on the roof of our house, and through the small window convinced himself as to what we were doing.

Should we shoot it? No! It was a long time since we had seen such a fearless creature. At times we placed nets with a meat bait to tease him, but he always managed to get clear of them."

Meanwhile their coal house with the floe was drifting south slowly, with the coast of Greenland in plain sight, distant from five to fifteen miles. Their safety, always the subject of daily talk, seemed a.s.sured until the coming spring, for they were on an immense floe-berg whose area of about four square miles was dotted with hills and vales, while sweet-water lakes gave abundant water for drinking and cooking, a great boon. It was known that surrounding floes were daily grinding huge pieces of ice from the edge of their own, and that the ice-pressures were steadily turning it around, so that one week they saw the rising sun from their single window and the week following noted the setting sun therefrom. At first this floe rotation was completed in twelve days, but later, with reduced size, stronger currents, and high winds, the floe-berg made a full rotation in four days.

At times there were welcome additions to their slim larder of fresh meat. One day a seaman rushed in breathless to say that he was sure there was a walrus near by. All were instantly astir, and soon a walrus was located, a black spot on the clear white of an adjoining floe. With great celerity and caution the whale-boat was launched in the intervening lane of open water, and with notable skill the steersman, Hildebrant, manoeuvred the boat within rifle range without disturbing the rest of the sleeping animal. The first shot wounded the walrus so badly that he could move away but slowly. On the approach of the hunters he struggled with great fury, breaking through the young ice and attempting to strike down the hunters as they approached to give him his death wound.

Covered with hide an inch thick, the walrus was so colossal that it took the united strength of ten men, using a powerful pulley, to raise the carca.s.s from the water to the main ice. Under the outer hide was a layer of fat three inches thick, which was almost as acceptable for fuel as was the meat for food to men who had for so long a time been confined to salt and canned meats as their princ.i.p.al diet.

The odor of the burning walrus fat seemed to attract bears from long distances. One inquisitive bruin, sniffing at the meat in one of the boats, fell through the tightly stretched canvas covering, and scrambling out growled at the night light by the outer door of the house and pa.s.sed on safely. A second animal was wounded but escaped. The third, whose acute hunger brought him one dark night to the house in search of the odorous walrus fat, was received with a volley and was found dead the next morning.

The quiet Christmas holidays, celebrated with German earnestness, had brought to their hearts an unusual sense of confidence, peace, and hope, based on their providential preservation, excellent health, and physical comfort. This confidence was soon rudely dispelled, giving way to deep anxiety at the devastation wrought by a frightful blizzard that burst on them with the opening new year.

Then the crew realized that there was a possible danger of perishing in the pack, since at any time their immense floe-berg might break into countless pieces in the very midst of the polar cold and the winter darkness. With the violent wind arose an awful groaning of the ice-pack, due to the tremendous pressures of the surging ocean beneath and of the crowding floes around. So violent were the movements of the floe itself, and so great the noise of crashing bergs, that they feared to longer remain in the coal house, and in terror of their lives they sought refuge in the open. Although the snow-filled air made it impossible for any one to see a dozen yards, yet at least there was a chance to escape if the floe split under their feet, which was felt to be possible at any moment. They made ready for the worst, though escape from death seemed quite hopeless. Rolling up their fur sleeping-bags and clothing, they filled their knapsacks with food. Forming a human chain they ran safety lines from the house to the several boats, well knowing that in the blinding blizzard one could not otherwise find his way to the boat to which each one had been told off for the final emergency. They then set a watch of two men to note events, and, intrusting their souls to G.o.d, the rest of the party crawled into their sleeping-bags for such needed rest and for such possible sleep as might come to the most stolid.

When the gale broke two days later they found that they had escaped death as by miracle. Three-fourths of this seemingly stable floe had disappeared, broken into huge, shapeless ma.s.ses. Barely a square mile of the floe remained intact, with the coal house perilously near the edge instead of in the centre.

Scarcely had order and comfort been restored, when ten days later an even more furious blizzard burst upon them, actually bringing them face to face with death. In the middle of the night the watch cried out loudly, "All hands turn out!" With their furs and knapsacks now kept ready for instant action, they rushed out and stood in place, each by his allotted boat. The hurricane wind made movement most difficult, snow filled the air, their floe was quivering from awful pressures, while the howling gale and groaning ice-pack made a deafening tumult. Nothing could be done but to stand and wait!

Suddenly the captain cried out, "Water is making on the next floe!" An adjoining floe-berg of great size and thickness had split into countless pieces, and where a moment before had been a solid ice surface was a high sea tossing broken ice-ma.s.ses. Huge pieces of their own berg now broke off, due to the action of the sea and to collision with the crowding pack. While looking with a feeling of despair at the high waves, now gnawing at and rapidly wasting the edges of their floe, they were greatly alarmed to hear a loud, sharp report as of a cannon-shot.

Before any one could stir, even had he known where to go, their floe burst with a fearful sound midway between the coal house and the wood-pile. Within a dozen yards of the house now appeared a huge chasm, quickly filled with huge waves which tossed to and fro great ice-blocks which beat against the floe remnant on which the dismayed men stood.

Though all seemed lost the crew without exception acted with courage and celerity. By prompt work they dragged up on the sound ice the whale-boat which barely escaped dropping into the sea. Aware that they could not launch and handle in such a storm the largest of their boats, Hegemann told off the men to the two small boats. In the pandemonium death was thought to be close at hand. With this thought they gave a last handshake to each other and said a final farewell as they separated and went to their alloted stations by the boats. The physical conditions were so utterly wretched that some even said that death would be welcome. The roaring of the pack was unceasing, the hurricane-like winds continued, while the temperature was forty-two degrees below freezing.

The sharp, cutting snow-pellets of the blizzard not only blinded the vision, but the clothes were saturated with the sand-like ice particles driven through the fur to their very skin, where they were melted by the heat of the body. Food was not to be thought of, save a bit of biscuit which was eaten as they stood.

For ten hours they stood fast by their boats in shivering misery and in mental anxiety, knowing that any moment they might be thrown into the sea. But by G.o.d's protection, in a providential manner, after being reduced to a diameter of one hundred and fifty feet their floe held together.

The dangers of the sea and of the ordinary pack had still another and novel phase. When matters seemed to be at their worst the watch cried out: "We are drifting on a high iceberg!" They stood immovable as the lofty berg loomed far above their heads, close on them, and after hanging a ghastly object over their tiny floe for a moment vanished in the mist while their hearts were yet in their mouths.

They had barely gathered together and arranged their few remaining effects when another frightful storm came upon them. While there were ice-movements around them all went to sleep except the watch, when with a thundering sound their quivering floe broke in two, a broad fissure pa.s.sing through the floor of the house. Captain Hegemann says: "G.o.d only knows how it happened that in our flight into the open none came to harm. In the most fearful weather we all stood roofless on the ice, waiting for the daylight which was still ten hours off. As it became quieter some crept into the captain's boat. Sleep was not to be thought of; it was a confused, unquiet half-slumber, from utter weariness, and our limbs quivered convulsively from cold (it was forty-one degrees below freezing) as we lay packed like herrings in our furs."

With a heroic devotion to duty the energetic cook had the courage to make coffee in the shattered house, on the very edge of the gaping ice-chasm that ran down into the sea. Hegemann says: "Never had the delicious drink awakened more creatures to life." This cook was a notable character, never discomposed, but invariably self-possessed even in the most critical moments. While the shattered coal house seemed in danger of falling into the sea he was busy repairing a kettle. When the captain suggested that he leave the house owing to the peril, he said: "If only the floe would hold together until I finish the kettle, then I can make tea so that you all may have something warm before you enter the boats." No pains or trouble was too great for him when the comfort of his shipmates was in question.

The poor doctor of the expedition did not have the iron nerves of the cook, and under the influence of constantly recurring dangers he developed melancholia, which lasted to the end. Of the crew in general captain Hegemann says: "Throughout all of the discomforts, want, hardships, and dangers of all kinds the frame of mind among the men was good, undaunted, and exalting."

All denied themselves to give comfort and to show consideration to the afflicted doctor.

At a gloomy period there came to them amus.e.m.e.nt and distraction through the visit of a frisky fox from the main-land, who remained with them many days. With growing boldness he came up quickly without signs of fear when bits of meat were thrown to him from the cook's galley. His gay antics and cunning ways were the source of much fun. Finally he became so tame that he even let the men he knew best stroke his snow-white fur.

On May 7, 1870, they were near Cape Farewell, the southerly point of Greenland, where they expected to quit the ice-field. It was now two hundred days since their besetment, and they had drifted more than six hundred miles, with all in health save the doctor. Snow had now given place to rain, the pack was rapidly dissolving, and at the first opening of the ice toward land they left their old floe and faced in their three boats the perils of an ice-filled sea. Afflicted by snow-blindness, worn out by strenuous, unceasing labor, storm-beset at times, encompa.s.sed by closely packed broken ice--through which the boats could not be rowed or pushed and over which man could not travel--they at last reached Illuidlek Island. The voyage at starting was supposed to involve four days of navigation, but it took twenty-four days to make it.

Now food became scarce for the first time, neither seals nor bears being killed, so that they were always hungry. Hegemann writes: "Talk turns on nothing but eating. Konrad was quite sad this morning; in his sleep he had consumed ham and poached eggs, one after another, but on waking felt so dreadfully hollow within."

Threatened by a closing pack they hauled up, with great difficulty, their boats on a large floe. They found a low shelving edge of the ice and emptied the large boat of its contents. Rocking the boat backward and forward, head on, when it had gained a free motion, the whole crew hauled together on the painter when the boatswain cried loudly: "Pull all!" When the bow caught the edge of the ice the boat could in time be worked gradually up on the floe, but it was a heart-breaking, exhausting, prolonged labor.

Storm-bound for four days, they resorted to various devices to pa.s.s the time and divert their minds from hunger. The loquacious carpenter spun old-time sea yarns, Vegesack tales of astounding character. In one story he related his experiences as captain of a gun-boat when, having no sailing directions for the North Sea, he steered by the help of a chart of the Mediterranean from Bremen to Hull. When he arrived off Hull he verified his position exactly by a sounding, which proved conclusively that he was at Ramsgate, south of the Thames. Thus did folly beguile misery.

Cut off from land by closely packed ice, they finally made the journey practically on foot, carrying their food and baggage on their backs. The boats were dragged one at a time through soft snow and across icy chasms. This task left them in a state of utter exhaustion, even the captain fainting from continued overwork.

From Illuidlek their voyage was easy to the Moravian missionary colony at Friedrichshaab, West Greenland, where comfort and safety were again theirs. Thus ended this wondrous voyage, which quiet heroism, complete comradeship, and full devotion to duty make one of the most striking in the annals of arctic service.

PARR'S LONELY MARCH FROM THE GREAT FROZEN SEA

Those grim fields which lie silent as night and uninhabited, and where no sound of human voice breaks the repose, where no dead are buried and where none can rise.

--KLOPSTOCK.

Centuries of efforts to attain the north pole, under the auspices of the government of Great Britain, had their final culmination in the arctic expedition of 1875-6. The squadron was commanded by Captain Sir George Nares, R.N., of _Challenger_ fame, whose flag-ship, the _Alert_, wintered at Floeberg Beach, exposed to the full force of the mighty pack of the frozen Arctic Ocean. Of the many sledge journeys made with the _Alert_ as the base of operations, the most important was naturally expected to accomplish the main object of the expedition. It was commanded by Commander Albert H. Markham, R.N., who with three man-sledges, two boats, and seventeen men all told marched directly northward over the hummocky surface of the Great Frozen Sea in an effort to reach the north pole. By most strenuous labors and heroic persistency Markham reached on the surface of the ice-covered sea lat.i.tude 83 20'

N., a point nearer the north pole than had ever before been attained by man.

This tale sets forth the lamentable experiences of Markham's homeward march, and particularly the vitally important and heroic journey of Lieutenant A. A. C. Parr, R.N., which saved the lives of his slowly perishing comrades.

The northward sledge journey over the floes of the frozen sea, though conducted by brave and experienced officers with selected men, was made under unusual physical disadvantages which made impossible any further success than was actually accomplished. The party was enc.u.mbered with heavy boats, which were carried as a precautionary measure through fear lest the main polar pack might be disrupted during their journey. The sledges were fearfully overloaded, for while their burdens of two hundred pounds per man might be hauled short distances over good ice, the later conditions of four hundred pounds (three sledges with two crews) per man, in deep snow and through rough ice, was simply impossible. The extreme roughness of the ice of the Arctic Ocean was beyond expectation or earlier experience. Finally it developed on the march that the health and strength of the men were impaired by attacks of incipient and unsuspected scurvy. So it happened that when only thirteen days out from the ship a scurvy-stricken man had to be hauled on the already overloaded sledge. With true British grit Markham went ahead, but four days later, in order to spare the strength of his men, who were daily falling out of the traces, he decided to take the chances of pack-disruption and so abandoned one of his boats.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Great Frozen Sea and Robeson Channel.]

It is not needful to give the details of the outward journey, which involved the abject misery of scarified faces, frost-hardened fingers, capsizing sledges, deep snows, and extreme cold to which most arctic sledgemen are subjected. To these were added road-making, owing to the mazes of high hummocks with deep intervening valleys. The increase of loads, so that progress could be made only by standing-pulls, was bad enough, but this disability was enhanced by the steady decrease of the number of sledgemen, by the necessity of hauling disabled men, and by the nursing care of patients steadily growing worse and unable to do anything for themselves.

Under such conditions Markham added to the glory of the British Navy by displaying the flag of his country on May 12, 1876, in 83 20' N., thus establishing a world's record. As five of his seventeen men were then unable even to walk, his venturesome courage in this journey could not be surpa.s.sed. Certainly Commander Markham pushed to the extreme limit compliance with his a.s.sertive sledge motto: "I dare do all that becomes a man. Who dares do more is none."

Amidst the glory and happiness of this notable day, there could not fail to arise in the minds of all, especially of Markham and his efficient aid, Lieutenant Parr, unbidden forebodings as to the homeward march. Was it not possible that their distressing conditions were a prelude to disaster? Would they all reach the ship? At all events they would do all that was in their power.

The seriousness of the situation was soon evident. In five days' travel, though inspired to greater efforts by the fact that they were homeward bound, they averaged only one and a half miles daily, at which rate it would take fifty days of uninterrupted sledging to reach the _Alert_.

The sledge work was simply appalling, almost heart-breaking. It took the whole force to advance the largest of the three sledges, and the necessary return for the smaller sledges tripled the distance of the original march. In addition the windings of the road to avoid bad ice so increased the length of the route that they were travelling five miles for each mile made good toward the ship.

Meantime the health and the strength of the men steadily decreased, and, most alarming symptoms of all, the appet.i.tes of the sledgemen began to fail. Markham's field journal briefly tells the harrowing tale: "With great difficulty can the patients be persuaded to eat anything. Mouths are too tender for well-soaked biscuit, and stomachs rebel against pemmican and fat bacon.... Unquenchable thirst, alleviated at meals only for lack of fuel to melt ice.... Invalids very weak and much subject to fainting fits. So utterly helpless and prostrate are they that they have to be a.s.sisted in every detail by two and sometimes four of their companions.... Tea-leaves are devoured with avidity by the majority....

The men find great difficulty in moving their legs, and are in great pain.... All are so stiff that the slightest exertion causes great suffering.... Out of thirty-four legs in the party we can only muster eleven good ones.... Every hour is important, as we know not when we may all be attacked and rendered useless."

When in this condition they were storm-stayed for thirty-six hours by a violent blizzard, when one could not see a sledge's length ahead. This brought matters to a crisis, and to hasten the march Markham was obliged to abandon his last boat and all stores that could be spared, ammunition, one hundred and seventy pounds of pemmican, and much camp gear. It was indeed time, for only four of the men were entirely well.