True Tales of Arctic Heroism in the New World Part 6

At the call for volunteers for the dangerous journey, which must be made in one march, all four of the well men responded, and astronomer Sonntag, with two Danes, Ohlsen and Petersen, made the journey. Irish Tommy, as the crew called Seaman Hickey, rebelled at first because he was not accepted, but his generous heart reconciled him to remaining when it was pointed out that his qualities as cook and as handy-man made him the best person to care for his crippled shipmates.

Kane tells the story of the rescue in language that cannot be improved.

"We were at work cheerfully, sewing on moccasins by the blaze of our lamps, when, toward midnight, we heard steps and the next minute Sonntag, Ohlsen, and Petersen came into the cabin, swollen, haggard, and hardly able to speak. They had left their companions in the ice, risking their own lives to bring us the news. Brooks, Baker, Wilson, and Pierre were all lying frozen and disabled. Where? They could not tell--somewhere in and among the hummocks to the north and east; it was drifting heavily around them when they parted."

With impaired health, in feeble strength, ignoring the protests of his officers against such exposure, the heroic Kane waited not a moment, but decided to take the field and risk his life, if necessary, to rescue his crippled shipmates.

Kane continues: "Rigging out the _Little Willie_ sledge with a buffalo cover, a small tent, and a package of pemmican, Ohlsen (who seemed to have his faculties rather more at command than his a.s.sociates) was strapped on in a fur bag, his legs wrapped in dog-skins and eider-down, and we were off. Our party consisted of myself and nine others. We carried only the clothes on our backs. The thermometer stood at seventy-eight degrees below the freezing-point....

"It was not until we had travelled sixteen hours that we began to lose our way. Our lost companions were somewhere in the area before us, within a radius of forty miles. For fifty hours without sleep, Ohlsen fell asleep as soon as we began to move, and now awoke with unequivocal signs of mental disturbance. He had lost the bearings of the icebergs. I gave orders to abandon the sledge and disperse in search of foot-marks.

We raised our tent, gave each man a small allowance of pemmican to carry on his person, and poor Ohlsen, just able to keep his legs, was liberated.

"The thermometer had fallen to eighty-one degrees below freezing, with the wind setting in sharply from the northwest. It was out of the question to halt; it required brisk exercise to keep us from freezing. I could not even melt ice for water, and any resort to snow for allaying thirst was followed by b.l.o.o.d.y lips and tongue; it burnt like caustic.

"We moved on looking for traces as we went. When the men were ordered to spread themselves, to multiply the chances, they kept closing up continually. The strange manner in which we were affected I attribute as much to shattered nerves as to the cold. McGary and Bonsall, who had stood out our severest marches, were seized with trembling fits and short breath. In spite of all my efforts to keep up an example of sound bearing, I fainted twice on the snow.

"We had been out eighteen hours when Hans, our Eskimo hunter, thought he saw a broad sledge-track which the drift had nearly effaced. We were some of us doubtful at first whether it was not one of those accidental rifts which the gales make in the surface snow. But as we traced it on to the deep snow among the hummocks we were led to footsteps. Following these with religious care, we at last came in sight of a small American flag fluttering from a hummock, and lower down a little masonic banner hanging from a tent-pole hardly above the drift. It was the camp of our disabled comrades; we reached it after an unbroken march of twenty-one hours.

"The little tent was nearly covered with snow. I was not among the first to come up; but when I reached the tent-curtain the men were standing in single file on each side of it. With more kindness and delicacy of feeling than is often supposed to belong to sailors, but which is almost characteristic, they intimated their wish that I should go in alone, and I crawled in. Coming upon the darkness, as I heard before me the burst of welcome gladness that came from the four poor fellows stretched on their backs, and then for the first time the cheer outside, my weakness and my grat.i.tude together almost overcame me. _They had expected me!

They were sure that I would come!_

"We were now fifteen souls; the thermometer seventy-five degrees below the freezing-point. Our sole accommodation was a tent barely able to hold eight persons; more than half of our party were obliged to keep from freezing by walking outside while the others slept."

For the return journey: "The sick, with their limbs sewed up carefully in reindeer-skins, were placed upon the bed of buffalo-robes, in a half-reclining posture; other skins and blankets were thrown above them, and the whole litter was lashed together so as to allow but a single opening opposite the mouth for breathing. This necessary work cost us a great deal of effort, but it was essential to the lives of the sufferers. After repeating a short prayer we set out on our retreat."

The journey homeward was made under conditions of almost insuperable difficulty and distress in which lack of sleep played a greater part than either cold or physical labor, severe as they both were. As the energy of the sledgemen failed the tent of the field party was pitched, and McGary left with orders to move forward after a sleep of four hours.

Not sparing himself, Kane went on with one man and reached the half-way tent, to melt ice and pemmican, in time to save its destruction by a predatory polar bear. He says: "The tent was uninjured though the bear had overturned it, tossing the buffalo-robes and pemmican into the snow.

All we recollect is that we had great difficulty in raising the tent. We crept into our reindeer-bags without speaking, and for the next three hours slept on in a dreamy but intense slumber. When I awoke my long beard was a ma.s.s of ice, frozen fast to the buffalo-skin; G.o.dfrey had to cut me out with his jack-knife."

A few hours later the crippled party rejoined Kane and after refreshment went on toward the ship. Fortunately the weather was fine and the cold less severe. Yet, says Kane, "Our halts multiplied, and we fell, half-sleeping, in the snow. Strange to say, it refreshed us. I ventured on the experiment, making Riley wake me at the end of three minutes. I felt so much benefited that I timed the men in the same way. They sat on the runners of the sledge, fell asleep instantly, and were forced to wakefulness when their three minutes were out."

In an utterly exhausted, half-delirious condition, they were met a few miles from the brig by a dog-sledge bringing restoratives. Of the outcome of the sledge journey out and back Kane says: "Ohlsen suffered some time from strabismus and blindness; two others underwent amputation of parts of the foot without unpleasant consequences; and two died in spite of all our efforts.

"The rescue party had been out for seventy-two hours. We had halted in all eight hours, half of our number sleeping at a time. We travelled between eighty and ninety miles, most of the way dragging a heavy sledge. The mean temperature of the whole time was seventy-three degrees below freezing, including the warmest hours of the three days. We had no water except at our two halts, and were at no time able to intermit vigorous exercise without freezing."

Such remarkable and successful efforts to rescue their suffering shipmates cannot fail to excite the admiration of all, if merely as an astonishing instance of man's physical endurance. Yet on the whole such feelings are subordinate in the hearts of most men to a sense of reverence for the spirit that animated Kane and his fellows to sacrifice their personal comfort and venture their lives for the relief and safety of their disabled comrades.

HOW WOON WON PROMOTION

"Poor, reckless, rude, low-born, untaught, A heart with English instinct fraught, He only knows that _not through him_ Shall England come to shame."

--DOYLE.

This tale recites one of the many stirring experiences of the crew of her majesty's ship _Investigator_, which, after having been frozen fast in the ice-floes of Mercy Bay, Banks Land, for two years, was abandoned, June 3, 1853. Owing to lack of provisions, the men, living on two-thirds rations for twenty months, were obliged to keep the field for hunting purposes so as to avoid death by starvation. The incidents herein related occurred in connection with the chase.

The sun had been entirely absent for ninety-four days, and the coldest period of the winter was at hand. Even at the warmest moment of the midwinter month, February, the temperature had barely risen to zero. At times the mercury froze solid, and the cold was so intense that even the ship herself seemed to suffer as much as the half-starved, ill-clad men.

The metal bolts and rivets glared at one with their ice-covered ends, while the wooden tree-nails, timbers, and doors cracked continually under the twin action of frost and contraction. And so since the New Year's coming the crew had shielded themselves as best they could from the utter darkness of the land and the frightful cold of the air. Even when it was possible hunting was unfruitful of results; the deer had migrated to the pastures of the milder south, while the hares and small game had huddled in crannies and nooks for shelter against the wind.

But now a few hours of feeble twilight, steadily increasing in duration and in brightness, were marked by broad bands of life-giving light at mid-day in the southern sky. Though the longer days were those of sharper cold, yet hunger and want early drove the hunters from the ship.

As soon as there was enough glimmering light to make it possible, the keen-eyed sportsmen started inland to find and follow the trails of such animals as might yet be in the country. At the same time they were charged to take the utmost care to make sharp note of prominent landmarks by which they could safely take up their return march to the _Investigator_.

The spring hunt may be said to have fairly opened ten days before the return of the long-absent sun, when a wretchedly gaunt reindeer was killed on January 28, 1852. For days individual deer had been seen, evidently returned from the south, where their winter life must have been a constant struggle against starvation, judging from the slain animal. While the deer of the previous autumn were always in good flesh, there was in this case not a bit of fat on any rib. A collection of mere skin and bones, this deer weighed less than ninety pounds, about the same as a large wolf or draught-dog.

This early success stimulated to action the hungry hunters, who thenceforth let no day pa.s.s without ranging the distant hills for sign of deer or musk-ox, anxious for the hunter's perquisites--the longed-for head and heart of the game.

On February 9 the day broke calm, clear, and unusually bright; especially attractive because of an hour of sunlight, the sun having come above the horizon at mid-day four days earlier. Every man who could get permission was enticed into the field, and great was the furore when one party brought in a small deer, giving promise of more from the hunters still in the open. With the pa.s.sing hours one man after another reached the ship, while the slowly vanishing twilight became fainter and fainter. When the darkness of night had come and the officer of the deck had checked off the hunters, he reported to the captain that two men were yet absent--Sergeant John Woon and Seaman Charles Anderson, both excellent men, active-bodied and distinguished as hunters.

Woon was the non-commissioned officer in charge of the detachment of royal marines, whose standing and popularity were almost as high with the seamen as with his own corps. Dr. Armstrong says of him: "He proved himself invaluable, was always a ready volunteer, most correct and soldier-like in conduct, ever contributed to the hilarity and cheerfulness of the crew, and was brave and intrepid on every occasion, which fully tested the man."

Whether on shipboard or on land, Woon never failed to do a lion's share of the work in hand, and was always the first to cheer and help a tired comrade. An indefatigable and successful hunter, he was familiar with the white wolves that so menaced the safety of individuals. On one occasion, going for a deer shot that day, he killed at a distance of a hundred yards a gaunt wolf who was greedily devouring the precious carca.s.s. This monster wolf, with a thick coat of pure, unstained white, weighed eighty pounds, was three feet four inches high and five feet ten inches in length.

It was Sergeant Woon also who had distinguished himself in killing, under thrilling circ.u.mstances, two infuriated and charging musk-oxen, as elsewhere related in the sketch, "Pim's Timely Sledge Journey."

Altogether he was a man quite able to care for himself, though not coming to the ship with such a reputation for woodcraft, hunting skill, and physical activity as had Seaman Anderson.

Able Seaman Charles Anderson was a man of powerful build and great muscular strength, who had made himself a leader among the seamen by his success in athletic sports, in which he easily excelled any other man on the ship. A Canadian by birth, his color and his personality disclosed in his veins deep strains of Indian or other alien blood. Inured to the hardships and labors of a hunter's life in the Hudson Bay territory, where he claimed to have been an employee, he displayed in his social relations the mercurial and attractive qualities which distinguish the French half-breeds, the famous _coureurs de bois_.

At the evening meal there was more or less chaffing between the marines and the seamen as to where were Woon and Anderson and what success they were having in the field. With a trace of that special pride of corps which goes so far to make the various arms of the military services so efficient, the seamen said that it was a pity that the absent men were not together so that Woon's safety might be better a.s.sured by the skill and strength of his friend Anderson. To these jests the royal marines answered, as was their wont, in kind, enlarging ludicrously by side remarks and flings on the reputed helplessness of sailors on land, especially on _deer-back_.

At eight o'clock that night affairs took a different turn, when it was known that M'Clure and the other officers felt serious alarm over the continued absence of two hunters who were said to be in the field apart.

The fog had given place to a bright sky, with feeble light and rapidly falling temperature, so that disaster to one or both was thought to be probable. The presence and boldness of the prowling bands of ravenous wolves in the immediate neighborhood of the ship was viewed as one of the greatest dangers to a single disabled man.

To show the location of the ship and to guide the absentees to it in the darkness of the night, a mortar was first fired to attract the notice of the hunters, and then every ten or fifteen minutes a rocket was sent up, but with the closest attention no one could detect any sound that at all resembled a human voice. Nothing could be heard save now and then the ominous howling of wolves, doleful sounds to the anxious crew.

After two disquieting hours of signals by mortar and rockets, with no responsive answers from the hunters, Captain M'Clure sent out three search-parties, each headed by an officer. Arranging a code of signals, both for recall to and for a.s.sistance from the ship, they set forth on an agreed plan in different directions, each party provided with rockets, blue light, food, wraps, and stimulants. In less than a quarter of an hour one of the searching-parties met Sergeant Woon coming to the ship for help. Summoning another squad to join them, they hastened under the direction of Sergeant Woon to the relief of Anderson, who was perishing of cold in a snow-drift a scant mile distant.

It appears that Anderson, discovering a herd of deer, had pursued and wounded one of them, which fled inland away from the ship. Following fast after the wounded animal, without noting the winding direction of the trail, he at length not only lost the tracks of the deer but also found that the country was being covered by a light fog. Climbing the nearest hill-top, he was panic-stricken to find himself unable to note either the face of the bright southern sky, the hunters' usual method of finding their bearings, or to see any landmark that was at all familiar.

He hurried from hill-top to hill-top, exhausting his strength, confusing his mind, and destroying his faith in his ability to find his homeward way. In utter despair he sat down in the snow and gave himself up for lost.

Most fortunately Sergeant Woon had seen no game, and chancing to cross the trail of Anderson and of the escaping deer, he decided to follow it up and help the sailor bring in his game. With extreme astonishment he found Anderson in a state of utter helplessness, already benumbed and certain soon to perish either from wolves or by freezing. Cold, fear, and fatigue had caused the seaman to lose not alone his power of action and of decision, but had almost deprived him of the faculty of speech.

He was in such a demoralized condition--half-delirious, frightened, fatigued, and frosted--that he could not at first fully realize that his comrade had come to his a.s.sistance and that his ultimate safety was quite a.s.sured.

His utter prostration was only known when Woon asked him to get up and go home, to which he feebly moaned out, "I am lost," and did not rise even when the sergeant curtly said: "Get up like a man and you are all right." Some time pa.s.sed before either words of cheer or sharp words of order and abuse had any effect. His patience worn out at last, Woon seized him roughly, dragged him to his feet, gave him a shove shipward, and started him on the home trail, but in a few minutes the bewildered seaman fell down in the deep snow through which he was walking. Not only was his strength worn out to exhaustion, but to the intense horror of Woon he was no sooner put on his feet than he fell down in a convulsive fit, while blood gushed freely from his mouth and nostrils.

The appalling conditions would have shaken any man less courageous than this heroic sergeant. They were many miles from the _Investigator_, the weather was turning cold with the vanishing fog, and the feeble twilight--it was now about two o'clock in the afternoon--was giving way to coming darkness. If he went to the ship for aid, Anderson would surely perish before it could be obtained. In the hours of travel to and fro the seaman would either freeze solidly or meet a horrible alternative fate from the not-far-distant wolves, whose dismal howlings already seemed a funeral dirge to their helpless prey.

The audacity and strength of these starving, ravenous animals had been a constant source of anxiety and alarm to all the hunters. Especially had the forecastle talk run on one gigantic brute, standing nearly four feet high at the shoulder, leaving a foot-print as big as that of a reindeer, who was thought to be the recognized leader of a marauding band from whose ravages no slaughtered game was free.

If the seaman could not be left, neither could he be carried, for Anderson was one of the largest and heaviest men of the crew, while the marine was one of the smallest and lightest. At last the thought came to Woon that he could drag the seaman in to the ship. Not daring, for fear of the wolves, to quit his gun, he slung both muskets across his shoulders, and clasping Anderson's arms around his neck started to drag him in this manner through miles of snow to the ship. Such a task was of the most herculean and exhausting character. The only relief that he had was when the trail brought him to the top of a hill or the edge of a ravine. Stopping and laying Anderson on the snow, he rolled him down the hill-side to the bottom, in this way giving himself a rest and at the same time stirring the dormant blood and breaking the lethargic sleep of the steadily freezing seaman. In fact this rough treatment was the saving of Anderson, as a fresh wind had sprung up with the temperature fifty-seven degrees below the freezing-point.

For ten long hours this heroic sergeant struggled on, while the situation seemed more and more critical. The seaman was growing stupider, while his own strength was decreasing from hour to hour, although his courage was unfailing despite cold, darkness, and snow. At length, when within a mile of the ship, he felt that he could not drag his man a step farther. While resting and planning what next to do, he saw a rocket shoot up, leaving its train of welcome blazing light.

Pointing to it, he called on Anderson to stand up and walk on as he was now safe. Again and again he uttered such words of cheer, with alternate threats and orders, but alas! without avail. The seaman only asked in feeble voice "to be left alone to die," having reached that benumbed state so dangerous to a freezing man.

Seeing that he could get him no farther, Woon laid him down in a drift of snow, covered him with such of his own clothing as he felt he could spare, and throwing quite a thick coating of snow over him, so as in a measure to protect him from the awful cold, went ahead for aid, which most happily proved to be near at hand.