Next morning the _Hope_ was becalmed in the midst of a scene more
beautiful than the tongue or the pen of man can describe.
When the sun rose that day, it shone upon what appeared to be a field of
glass and a city of crystal. Every trace of the recent storm was gone
except a long swell, which caused the brig to roll considerably, but
which did not break the surface of the sea.
Ice was to be seen all round as far as the eye could reach. Ice in
every form and size imaginable. And the wonderful thing about it was
that many of the masses resembled the buildings of a city. There were
houses, and churches, and monuments, and spires, and ruins. There were
also islands and mountains! Some of the pieces were low and flat, no
bigger than a boat; others were tall, with jagged tops; some of the
fields, as they are called, were a mile and more in extent, and there
were a number of bergs, or ice-mountains, higher than the brig's
topmasts. These last were almost white, but they had, in many places, a
greenish-blue colour that was soft and beautiful. The whole scene shone
and sparkled so brilliantly in the morning sun, that one could almost
fancy it was one of the regions of fairyland!
When young Gregory came on the quarter-deck, no one was there except Jim
Croft, a short, thick-set man, with the legs of a dwarf and the
shoulders of a giant. He stood at the helm, and although no steering
was required, as there was no wind, he kept his hands on the spokes of
the wheel, and glanced occasionally at the compass. The first mate, who
had the watch on deck, was up at the masthead, observing the state of
the ice.
"How glorious!" exclaimed the youth, as he swept his sparkling eye round
the horizon. "Ah, Croft! is not this splendid?"
"So it is, sir," said the seaman, turning the large quid of tobacco that
bulged out his left cheek. "It's very beautiful, no doubt, but it's
comin' rather thick for my taste."
"How so?" inquired Gregory. "There seems to me plenty of open water to
enable us to steer clear of these masses. Besides, as we have no wind,
it matters little, I should think, whether we have room to sail or not."
"You've not seed much o' the ice yet, that's plain," said Croft, "else
you'd know that the floes are closin' round us, an' we'll soon be fast
in the pack, if a breeze don't spring up to help us."
As the reader may not, perhaps, understand the terms used by Arctic
voyagers in regard to the ice in its various forms, it may be as well
here to explain the meaning of those most commonly used.
When ice is seen floating in small detached pieces and scattered masses,
it is called "floe" ice, and men speak of getting among the floes. When
these floes close up, so that the whole sea seems to be covered with
them, and little water can be seen, it is called "pack" ice. When the
pack is squeezed together, so that lumps of it are forced up in the form
of rugged mounds, these mounds are called "hummocks." A large mass of
flat ice, varying from one mile to many miles in extent, is called a
"field," and a mountain of ice is called a "berg."
All the ice here spoken of, except the berg, is sea-ice; formed by the
freezing of the ocean in winter. The berg is formed in a very different
manner. Of this more shall be said in a future chapter.
"Well, my lad," said Gregory, in reply to Jim Croft's last observation,
"I have not seen much of the ice yet, as you truly remark, so I hope
that the wind will not come to help us out of it for some time. You
don't think it dangerous to get into the pack, do you?"
"Well, not exactly dangerous, sir," replied Croft, "but I must say that
it aint safe, 'specially when there's a swell on like this. But that'll
go down soon. D'ye know what a nip is, Dr Gregory?"
"I think I do; at least I have read of such a thing. But I should be
very glad to hear what you have to say about it. No doubt you have felt
one."
"Felt one!" cried Jim, screwing up his face and drawing his limbs
together, as if he were suffering horrible pain, "no, I've never felt
one. The man what _feels_ a nip aint likely to live to tell what his
feelin's was. But I've _seed_ one."
"You've seen one, have you? That must have been interesting. Where was
it?"
"Not very far from the Greenland coast," said Croft, giving his quid
another turn. "This was the way of it. You must know that there was
two ships of us in company at the time. Whalers we was. We got into
the heart of the pack somehow, and we thought we'd never get out of it
again. There was nothin' but ice all round us as far as the eye could
see. The name of our ship was the _Nancy_. Our comrade was the
_Bullfinch_. One mornin' early we heard a loud noise of ice rubbin'
agin the sides o' the ship, so we all jumped up, an' on deck as fast as
we could, for there's short time given to save ourselves in them seas
sometimes. The whole pack, we found, was in motion, and a wide lead of
water opened up before us, for all the world like a smooth river or
canal windin' through the pack. Into this we warped the ship, and
hoistin' sail, steered away cheerily. We passed close to the
_Bullfinch_, which was still hard and fast in the pack, and we saw that
her crew were sawin' and cuttin' away at the ice, tryin' to get into the
lead that we'd got into. So we hailed them, and said we would wait for
'em outside the pack, if we got through. But the words were no sooner
spoken, when the wind it died away, and we were becalmed about half a
mile from the _Bullfinch_.
"`You'd better go down to breakfast, boys,' says our captain, says he,
`the breeze won't be long o' comin' again.'
"So down the men went, and soon after that the steward comes on deck,
and, says he to the captain, `Breakfast, sir.' `Very good,' says the
captain, and down he went too, leavin' me at the wheel and the mate in
charge of the deck. He'd not been gone three minutes when I noticed
that the great field of ice on our right was closin' in on the field on
our left, and the channel we was floatin' in was closin' up. The mate
noticed it, too, but he wouldn't call the captain 'cause the ice came so
slowly and quietly on that for a few minutes we could hardly believe it
was movin' and everything around us looked so calm and peaceful like
that it was difficult to believe our danger was so great. But this was
only a momentary feelin', d'ye see. A minute after that the mate he
cries down to the captain:--
"`Ice closin' up, sir!'
"And the captain he runs on deck. By this time there was no mistake
about it; the ice was close upon us. It was clear that we were to have
a nip. So the captain roars down the hatchway, `Tumble up there! tumble
up! every man alive! for your lives!' And sure enough they did tumble
up, as I never seed 'em do it before--two or three of 'em was sick; they
came up with their clothes in their hands. The ice was now almost
touchin' our sides, and I tell _you_, sir, I never did feel so queerish
in all my life before as when I looked over the side at the edge of that
great field of ice which rose three foot out o' the water, and was, I
suppose, six foot more below the surface. It came on so slow that we
could hardly see the motion. Inch by inch the water narrowed between it
and our sides. At last it touched on the left side, and that shoved us
quicker on to the field on our right. Every eye was fixed on it--every
man held his breath. You might have heard a pin fall on the deck. It
touched gently at first, then there was a low grindin' and crunchin'
sound. The ship trembled as if it had been a livin' creetur, and the
beams began to crack. Now, you must know, sir, that when a nip o' this
sort takes a ship the ice usually eases off, after giving her a good
squeeze, or when the pressure is too much for her, the ice slips under
her bottom and lifts her right out o' the water. But our _Nancy_ was
what we call wall-sided. She was never fit to sail in them seas. The
consequence was that the ice crushed her sides in. The moment the
captain heard the beams begin to go he knew it was all up with the ship;
so he roared to take to the ice for our lives! You may be sure we took
his advice. Over the side we went, every man Jack of us, and got on the
ice. We did not take time to save an article belongin' to us; and it
was as well we did not, for the ice closed up with a crash, and we heard
the beams and timbers rending like a fire of musketry in the hold. Her
bottom must have been cut clean away, for she stood on the ice just as
she had floated on the sea. Then the noise stopped, the ice eased off,
and the ship began to settle. The lead of water opened up again; in ten
minutes after that the _Nancy_ went to the bottom and left us standing
there on the ice.
"It was the mercy of God that let it happen so near the _Bullfinch_. We
might have been out o' sight o' that ship at the time, and then every
man of us would have bin lost. As it was, we had a hard scramble over a
good deal of loose ice, jumpin' from lump to lump, and some of us
fallin' into the water several times, before we got aboard. Now that
was a bad nip, sir, warn't it?"
"It certainly was," replied Gregory; "and although I delight in being
among the ice, I sincerely hope that our tight little brig may not be
tried in the same way. But she is better able to stand it, I should
think."
"That she is, sir," replied Croft, with much confidence. "I seed her in
dock, sir, when they was a-puttin' of extra timbers on the bow, and I do
believe she would stand twice as much bad usage as the _Nancy_ got,
though she is only half the size."
Jim Croft's opinion on this point was well founded, for the _Hope_ had
indeed been strengthened and prepared for her ice battles with the
greatest care, by men of experience and ability. As some readers may be
interested in this subject, I shall give a brief account of the
additions that were made to her hull.
The vessel was nearly two hundred tons burden. She had originally been
built very strongly, and might even have ventured on a voyage to the
Polar seas just as she was. But Captain Harvey resolved to take every
precaution to insure the success of his voyage, and the safety and
comfort of his men. He, therefore, had the whole of the ship's bottom
sheathed with thick hardwood planking, which was carried up above her
water-line, as high as the ordinary floe-ice would be likely to reach.
The hull inside was strengthened with stout cross-beams, as well as with
beams running along the length of the vessel, and in every part that was
likely to be subjected to pressure iron stanchions were fastened. But
the bow of the vessel was the point where the utmost strength was aimed
at. Inside, just behind the cutwater, the whole space was so traversed
by cross-beams of oak that it almost became a solid mass, and outside
the sharp stem was cased in iron so as to resemble a giant's chisel.
The false keel was taken off, the whole vessel, in short, was rendered
as strong, outside and in, as wood and iron and skill could make her.
It need scarcely be said that all the other arrangements about her were
made with the greatest care and without regard to expense, for although
the owners of the brig did not wish to waste their money, they set too
high a value on human life to risk it for the sake of saving a few
pounds. She was provisioned for a cruise of two years and a half. But
this was in case of accidents, for Captain Harvey did not intend to be
absent much longer than one year.
But, to return to our story:
Jim Croft's fear that they would be set fast was realised sooner than he
expected. The floes began to close in, from no cause that could be
seen, for the wind was quite still, and in a short time the loose ice
pressed against the _Hope_ on all sides. It seemed to young Gregory as
if the story that the seaman had just related was about to be enacted
over again; and, being a stranger to ice, he could not help feeling a
little uneasy for some time. But there was in reality little or no
danger, for the pressure was light, and the brig had got into a small
bay in the edge of an ice-field, which lay in the midst of the smaller
masses.
Seeing that there was little prospect of the pack opening up just then,
the captain ordered the ice-anchors to be got out and fixed.
The appearance of the sea from the brig's deck was now extremely wintry,
but very bright and cheerful. Not a spot of blue water was to be seen
in any direction. The whole ocean appeared as if it had been frozen
over.
It was now past noon, and the sun's rays were warm, although the
quantity of ice around rendered the air cold. As the men were returning
from fixing the anchors, the captain looked over the side, and said:
"It's not likely that we shall move out of this for some hours. What
say you, lads, to a game of football?"
The proposal was received with a loud cheer. The ball had been prepared
by the sail-maker, in expectation of some such opportunity as this. It
was at once tossed over the side; those men who were not already on the
field scrambled out of the brig, and the entire crew went leaping and
yelling over the ice with the wild delight of schoolboys let loose for
an unexpected holiday.
They were in the middle of the game when a loud shout came from the
brig, and the captain's voice was heard singing out:
"All hands ahoy! come aboard. Look alive!"
Instantly the men turned, and there was a general race toward the brig,
which lay nearly a quarter of a mile distant from them.
In summer, changes in the motions of the ice take place in the most
unexpected manner. Currents in the ocean are, no doubt, the chief cause
of these; the action of winds has also something to do with them. One
of these changes was now taking place. Almost before the men got on
board the ice had separated, and long canals of water were seen opening
up here and there. Soon after that a light breeze sprang up, the
ice-anchors were taken aboard, the sails trimmed, and soon the _Hope_
was again making her way slowly but steadily to the north.