When a whaling ship is beset in the ice of Davis Straits, there is
little work for her second engineer, once the engines have been nicely
tallowed down. Now, I am no man that can sit in his berth and laze. If
I've no work to do, I get a-thinking about my home at [v]Ballindrochater
and the ministry, which my father intended I should have adorned, and
what a fool I've made of myself, and this is depressing. I was not
over-popular already on the _Gleaner_ on account of some prophecies I
had made in anger, which had unfortunately come true. The crew, and the
captain, too, had come to fear my prophetic powers.
At last I bethought me of sporting on the ice. There was head-money
offered for all bears, foxes, seals, musk-oxen, and such like that were
shot and gathered. So I went to the skipper, and he gave me a Henry
rifle, well rusted, and eight cartridges.
"Show me you can use those, McTodd," says he, "and I'll give you more."
I made a big mistake with that rusty old gun. I may be a sportsman, but
before that I'm an engineer, and it seemed to me that Heaven sent metal
into this world to be kept bright and clean. So I took the rifle all to
pieces and made the parts as smooth and sweet as you'd see in a
gun-maker's shop, barring rust-pits, and gave them a nice daubing of oil
against the Arctic weather. Then I put on some thick clothes I had
made, and all the other clothes I could get loaned me, and climbed out
over the rail on to the [v]floe.
The _Gleaner_ lay in a bay some two miles from the shore, and let me
tell you, if you do not know it, that Arctic ice is no skating-rink.
There are great hills, and knolls, and bergs, and valleys spread all
over, and even where it's about level, the underfoot is as hard going as
a newly-metalled road before the steam-roller has passed over it.
The air was clear enough when I left the bark, and though the [v]mercury
was out of use and coiled up snugly in the bulb, it wasn't as cold as
you might think, for just then there was no wind. It's a breeze up in
the Arctic that makes you feel the chill. There was no sun, of course;
there never is sun up there in that dreary winter: but the stars were
burning blue and clear, and every now and then a big [v]catherine wheel
of [v]aurora would show off, for all the world like a firework
exhibition.
My! but it was lonely, though, once you had left the ship behind! There
was just the scrunching of your feet on the frost [v]rime, and not
another sound in the world. Even the ice was frozen too hard to squeak.
And overhead in that purple-black Heaven you never knew Who was looking
down at you. Out there in that cold, bare, black, icy silence, I had
occasion to remember that Neil Angus McTodd had been a sinner in his
time, and it made me shiver when I glanced up toward those blue, cold
stars and the deep purple darkness that lay between and behind them.
It may be that I was thinking less of my hunting than was advisable, for
of a sudden I woke up to the sound of heavy feet padding over the crisp
frost rime. I turned me round sharply enough, but as far as the dim
light carried there was nothing alive to be seen through the gloom. As
soon as I stopped, the footsteps stopped, too, and I don't mind
admitting that my scalp tickled.
However, when I'd hauled up the hammer of the Henry, and it dropped into
position with a good, wholesome _cluck_, my nervousness very soon
filtered out. There's a comfort about a heavy-bore rifle like a
Henry--which is the kind always used by whalers and sealers--that you
can't get from those fancy little guns. And then, as it seemed that the
animal, whatever it might be, wasn't going to move till I did, I
shuffled my high sealskin boots on the crisp snow to make believe that I
was tramping again.
The creature started after me promptly. It was hard to tell the
direction, because every sound in that icy silence was echoed by a
thousand bergs and hummocks of ice; but presently from behind a small
splintered ridge of the floe there strolled out what seemed to me the
largest bear in the Arctic regions. You must know that the night air
there has a [v]deceptive light--it enlarges things--and the beast
appeared to me as standing some five feet six inches high at the
shoulder, and measuring some twenty feet from nose to tail.
There was myself and there was the bear in the dark middle of that awful
loneliness, with no one to interfere; and as there was only one of us to
get home, I preferred it should not be he. So I took a brace on myself,
and stood with the Henry ready to fire.
There was nothing you might call [v]diffidence about that bear. He
slouched along up to me at a steady walk, with the hair and skin on him
swinging about as though it was too large for his carcass and he was
wearing a misfit. He seemed to look upon me as dinner, and no hurry
needful. There was a sort of calm certainty about him that made me
angry.
I was not what you might call a marksman in those days, and so I set a
bit of [v]hummock about ten yards off as a limit where I could not very
conveniently miss, and waited until the bear should come opposite that.
Well, he came to it right enough in his own time. There was, as I have
said before, no diffidence about the creature. And then I raised the
Henry and fired her off.
_Cluck_ went the hammer on the nipple, but there was no bang.
My! it was a misfire, and there was the bear coming down on me as steady
and unconcerned as a [v]traction engine! I clawed out that cartridge
and crammed in another. The bitter cold of the metal skinned my fingers
like escaping steam. Then I cocked the gun again, shouldered it, and
pulled trigger again.
Once more she wouldn't go off!
The bear was now nearly on top of me and was beginning to rear on its
hind legs. Somehow the rifle came into my hand muzzle-end, and I hit the
great brute across the eyes with the butt hard enough to have felled an
ox.
I might as well have struck it with a cane. _Whack_ came a big
yellow-white paw, the Henry went flying, and my wrists tingled with the
jar; and there was I left looking, I've no doubt you'll think, very
humorous.
The bear might have finished me then if it had chosen. But it must needs
turn aside to go snuffling at the rifle and lick the oil off the locks.
I turned and footed it.
Now, at the best of times, I am no [v]sprinter, and in the great
mountain of clothes one wears up there in the cold Arctic night, no man
can make much speed. Besides, the way was that uneven it was a case of
hands and scramble more often than plain running over the sharp, spiky
level.
The bear, once he had finished his snuffle and lick at the Henry, came
on at a dreadful pace, making nothing of those obstacles that balked
me,--he had been born up there, you know. He laid himself out--I could
see over my shoulder--like one of those American trotting horses, caring
nothing for the ups and downs and ankle-breaking ice. In about two
shakes he was snorting at my heels again, till I could almost feel his
hot breath. The bundle of clothes hampered me. I stripped off my outer
over-all and let it drop behind me.
The bear stopped and snuffed that, but I didn't stay to watch him. I got
a good fifty [v]fathoms ahead of him whilst he was thus occupied. But
presently, when he'd got all his satisfaction out of that, on he comes
again, and I had to give him my coat. I hadn't a chance of equaling him
in pace, but the trick with the clothing never tired him. Fifty fathoms
was the least gain I made over a single piece, and as I got lower down
toward my skin he stayed over the clothes longer.
But still the _Gleaner_ was a long way off, over very tumbled ice, and
there I was careering on in a costume which was barely enough for
decency, and certainly insufficient for the climate.
However, it was little enough the bear cared for such refinements as
those. I stripped off my last garment as I ran, and gained nigh on two
hundred yards whilst he investigated it; and there were the bark's upper
spars showing above the hummocks half a mile away, with me in nothing
but my long seal-skin boots!
But there was no help for it. Up came the hot breath behind me, and I
leaned up against a hummock and stripped off a boot. I hailed the
_Gleaner_ with what breath I had left, but no one gave heed. Away went
the other boot, and there I was running, mother-naked, over the jagged
floe, leaving blood on every footmark.
Right up to the vessel did the outrageous beast chase me, and then when
I got on board and called for guns, it slunk away into the shadows of a
berg and was seen no more. My feet were cut to the bone; I was
frost-nipped in twenty places, and you may imagine I had had a poor
enough time of it. But the thought of that canvas over-all which I had
thrown away first kept me cheerful. It was indeed a very humorous
circumstance. Ye see it was a borrowed one.
I got down below to a berth, and the steward, who was rated as a doctor,
tended me. But Captain Black put sourness on the whole affair. He came
down to my bunk and said, "Where's that Henry?"
"Lying quiet on the ice," said I.
"Do you mean to say you left that rifle behind? My rifle!"
"I did that same. The thing wasn't strong enough to fire a cartridge. I
tried two."
And then Black used violent and unjustifiable language. I was in no
condition to give him a fair exchange. Besides, I made an unfortunate
admission. I owned up to taking the rifle apart and cleaning her. I
owned up, too, that I'd been free with the oil.
Black stuck out his face at me, and his fringe of beard fairly bristled.
"And you call yourself an engineer! You talk about having gone through
the shops! Put your filthy engine-room oil on my Henry's locks, would
you? Why, you idiot, have you yet to learn that oil freezes up here as
hard as cheese, and you've made up the lock space of that poor rifle
into one solid chunk?"
"I never thought of that."
"To look at your face, you've yet to start thinking at all."
So we had it out, and as I was now aroused, I gave him some words on the
inefficient way he ran his ship. At last I threatened to prophesy again,
and this cooled him off. I offered to go hunting bears for him and he
became quite polite.
"I'll make you an offer touching those bears," he said. "For every skin
you bring here aboard, I'll give you seven shillings [v]bonus above your
share as a member of the ship's company. I'll give you another rifle,
two rifles if you like, and a fine bag of cartridges. But, you beggar, I
make one condition. You take yourself off and away from the ship to do
your hunting. You may make yourself a snow house to stay in, and live on
the meat you kill."
"You wish to murder me?"
"I wish to be rid of you, and that's the truth. Man, I believe you're
Jonah resurrected. We've had no luck since first you put your foot on my
deck planks. And, what's more, the crew is of my way of thinking. So,
refuse my offer, and I'll put you in irons and keep you there till I can
fling you ashore at [v]Dundee."
Now there is no doubt Black meant what he said, and so I did not waste
dignity by arguing with him. I had no taste for the irons, and as for
being turned out on the ice--well, I had a plan ahead. But I didn't
intend to leave Black more comfortable than I could help.
So I shut my eyes and said that the ship would have very bad luck that
winter, that there would be much sickness aboard. (This was an easy
guess.) I said, considering this fact, I was glad to leave such an
unwholesome ship.
The crew were just aching to get rid of me. This prophesying sort of
grows on a man; once you've started it, you've got to go on with it at
all costs, and I could no more resist just letting my few remarks slip
round amongst the men than I can resist eating when I'm hungry.
The nerves of the _Gleaner_ people were in strings from the cold and the
blackness of the Arctic night, and it put the horrors on the lot of
them. The one thing they wanted was to see the last of me. They gave me
almost anything I fancied, but my means of transport were small. There
was a bit of a sledge, which I packed with some food, two Henry rifles
and a few tools, five hundred cartridges, and the clothes I stood in. No
more could be taken.
Then I went on deck into the bitter cold and over the side, and stood on
the ice, ready to start on my journey. The crew lined the rail to see me
off, and I can tell you their faces were very different. The older ones
were savage and cared little how soon Jonah might die. The younger ones
were crying to see a fellow driven away into that icy loneliness, far
from shelter.
But for myself I didn't care. I had method in all this performance. Soon
after we were beset in the ice, a family of Esquimaux had come on the
_Gleaner_ to pay a polite call and get what they could out of us. They
were that dirty you could have chipped them with a scaling hammer, but
they were very friendly. One buck who stepped down into the engine
room--[v]Amatikita, he said his name was--had some English, and came to
the point as straight as anything.
"Give me a [v]dlink, Cappie," says he.
"This is a dry ship," says I.
"Plenty dlink in that box," says he, handling an oil-can.
"Oh, if that's what you want, take it," I told him, and he clapped the
nozzle between his lips, and sucked down a gill of [v]cylinder
lubricating oil as though it had been water.
"You seem to like it," I said; "have some more."
But that was his fill. He thanked me and asked me to visit his village
when I could get away from the ship. And just then some of his friends
were caught pilfering, and the whole crew of them were bundled away.
Now I had noted that most of these Esquimaux had bits of bearskins
amongst their other furs, and it was that I had in mind when I fell out
with Captain Black. Amatikita had pointed out the direction in which his
village lay, and it was to that I intended making my way with as little
delay as possible. But I kept this to myself, and let no word of it slip
out on the _Gleaner_. Indeed, when I was over the bark's rails, I headed
off due north across the ice. I climbed and stumbled on in this
direction till I was well out of their sight and hearing amongst the
hummocks, and then I turned at right angles for the shore.
The cold up yonder in that Arctic night takes away your breath; it seems
to take the manhood out of you. You stumble along gasping. By a chance I
came on an Esquimaux sealing, and he beat and thumped me into
wakefulness. Then he packed me on to his dog-sleigh, and took my own bit
of a sled behind, and set his fourteen-foot whip cracking, and off we
set.
Well, you have to be pretty far gone if you can stay asleep with an
[v]Innuit's dog-sledge jolting and jumping beneath you, and I was well
awakened, especially as the Esquimaux sat on top of me. And so in time
we brought up at the huts, and a good job, too. I'd been tramping in the
wrong direction, so it turned out, and, besides, if I had come to the
village, I might well have walked over the top of it, as it was drifted
up level with snow. There was a bit of a rabbit-hole giving entrance to
each hut, with some three fathoms of tunnel underground, and skin
curtains to keep out the draught, but once inside you might think
yourself in a [v]stoke-hold again. There was the same smell of oil, and
almost the same warmth. I tell you, it was fine after that slicing cold
outside.
It was Amatikita's house I was brought to, and he was very hospitable.
They took off my outer clothes and put them on the rack above the
soapstone lamp to dry, and waited on me most kindly. Indeed, they
recognized me as a superior at once, and kept on doing it. They put
tender young seal-meat in the dish above the lamp, and when it was
cooked I ate my part of the stew, and then got up and took the best
place on the raised sleeping-bench at the farther side of the hut. I cut
a fill for my pipe, lit up and passed the plug, and presently we were
all smoking, happy as you please.
Amatikita spoke up like a man. "Very pleased to see you, Cappie. What
you come for? What you want?"
"You're a man of business," I said. "You waste no time. I like that.
What I want is bearskins. The jackets of big, white, baggy-trousered
polar bears, you know; and I brought along a couple of tip-top rifles
for you to get them with. Now, I make you a fair offer. Get me all the
bears in the North Polar regions, and you shall have my Henrys and all
the cartridges that are left over. And as for the meat, you shall have
that as your own share of the game."
"You want shoot those bears yourself?"
"Not if I can help it. I'm an engineer, and a good one at that. But as a
sportsman I've had but little experience, and don't seem drawn toward
learning. It is too draughty up here, just at present, for my taste.
I'll stay and keep house, and maybe do a bit of repairing and inventing
among the furniture. I've brought along a hand-vice and a bag of tools
with me, and if you can supply drift-wood and some scrap-iron, I'll make
this turf-house of yours a real cottage."
The deal was made. I worked away with my tools, and whenever those
powdering winter gales eased for a little, Amatikita and his friends
would go off with the howling dog-sledges and the Henrys, and it was
rare that they'd come back without one bear, and often they'd bring two
or even three. These white bears sleep through the black winter months
in hollows in the cliffs, and the Esquimaux know their lairs, though
it's rare enough they dare tackle them. Small blame, too, you'd say, if
you saw the flimsy bone-tipped lances and harpoons, which are all they
are armed with.
With a good, smashing, heavy-bore Henry rifle it is a different thing.
The Esquimaux were no cowards. They would walk up within a yard of a
bear, when the dogs had ringed it, and blow half its head away with a
single shot. And then they would draw the carcass up to the huts with
the dog trains, and the women would skin and dress the meat, and
Amatikita and the others would gorge themselves.
At last the long winter wore away. Amatikita dived in through the
entrance of the hut one day and told me that the ice-floe was beginning
to break. The news affected me like the blow of a whip. I went out into
the open and found the sun up. The men were overhauling their skin
canoes. The snow was wet underfoot and seafowl were swooping around. The
floe was still sound where it joined the shore, but two seaward lanes of
blue water showed between the ice, and in one of them a whale was
spouting pale gray mist.
It was high time for me to be off. So the bearskins were fastened by
thongs to the sledges and word was shouted to the dog leader of each
team. The dogs started, and presently away went the teams full tilt, the
sledges leaping and crashing in their wake, with the drivers and a
certain Scotch engineer who was unused to such [v]acrobatics clinging
on top of the packs. My! but yon was a wild ride over the rotten,
cracking, sodden floe, under the fresh, bright sunshine of that Arctic
spring morn!
Presently round the flank of a small ice-berg we came in view of the
_Gleaner_. She was still beset in the ice; but the hands were hard at
work beating the ice from the rigging and cutting a gutter around her in
the floe, so that she might float when the time came. They knocked off
work when we drove up.
"Good-day, Captain Black," I said. "I've been troubling myself over
bearskins, and I'll ask you for seven shillings head money on
twenty-nine."
"You've shot twenty-nine bears? You're lying to me."
"The skins are there, and you can count them for yourself."
His color changed when the Esquimaux passed the skins over the side. And
I clambered aboard the ship along with them.