Before morning we had to make Tookoolito and Merkut [the women] get out
and help us hold on too.... That was the greatest fight for life we had
yet had. God must have given us strength for the occasion. For twelve
hours there was scarcely a sound uttered save the crying of the children
and my orders: '_Hold on! Bear down! Put on all your weight!_' and the
responsive '_ay, ay, sir!_' which for once came readily enough."
These awful experiences past, they were rescued ten days later, off the
coast of Labrador, by Captain Bartlett of the sealing-steamer _Tigress_.
They had lived on an ice-floe one hundred and ninety-six days and
drifted fifteen hundred miles. Through God's providence they were
restored to the world in health and without the loss of a life or even
of a limb.
His work accomplished, the heroic sailor, Tyson, went back to the
every-day things of life without parade or boastings, and in an humble
position did well and contentedly the ordinary round of work.
In the difficult and dangerous arctic service herein told Tyson did from
day to day what seemed his present duty as best he could without thought
of self. Without other ambition than to save the lives of the men, the
women, and the children whom Providence had intrusted to his charge, he
did not seek but he found fame and good report. Let the youth of our
great land note that this is but one of the many cases in our day and
generation in which, as Tennyson sings:
"Let his great example stand,
Till in all lands and thro' all human story
The path of duty be the path of glory."
FOOTNOTES:
[14] See map, page 95.
[15] Of this situation Hans Hendrik, in his "Memoirs," written in
Eskimo, says: "But especially I pitied my poor little wife and her
children in the terrible snow-storm. I began thinking: 'Have I searched
for this myself by travelling to the north? But no! we have a merciful
Providence to watch over us.' At length our children fell asleep, while
we covered them with ox-hides in the frightful snow-drift."
THE SAVING OF PETERSEN
"Only action gives life strength."
--RICHTER.
In 1875 the British arctic expedition steamed northward through Kane Sea
in its attempt to reach the north pole. Its commander, Captain George S.
Nares, R.N., thought it prudent to insure a safe retreat by establishing
a southerly base of operations where one ship should remain. Nares, in
the flag-ship _Alert_, chose the dangerous and exposed winter quarters
at Floeberg Beach, an open roadstead of the ice-clad Arctic Ocean at the
northern entrance of Robeson Channel. The _Discovery_, under command of
Captain S. F. Stephenson, R.N., was laid up at a sheltered anchorage in
Lady Franklin Bay, more than a hundred miles to the southward of the
_Alert_. An attempt to open communication between the two ships by
sledge party failed in the autumn of 1875. With the return of the sun in
1876, after an absence of one hundred and fifty days, it became most
important to establish communication with the _Discovery_ at the
earliest moment. From the _Alert_ there was visible far to the eastward,
on clear days, the mountains of northwest Greenland, which Nares wished
Stephenson to explore instead of making a sledge trip to the Etah
Eskimos to the south as originally planned. The heroic conduct of the
officers attempting this journey and their success in saving the life of
Petersen are set forth in this tale.
* * * * *
The efficiency of every army and of every navy of the world is known
only by the final and supreme test of active service in war, but it is
plain that the essential attributes to success--skill, solidarity, and
devotion to duty--are acquired in times of peace. Nowhere are greater
efforts made to cultivate these admirable qualities than in the royal
navy of Great Britain, the most formidable of the world.
Among its chiefs is the second naval lord, whose duties lie especially
with the hearts of oak, the men behind the guns, whose courage and skill
are the very soul of the service. The second naval lord has in charge
the manning and officering of the war-ships; he plans the bringing
together at a special place and in a given time the mighty dreadnoughts,
the tiny torpedo-boats, the swaying submarines, and the swift
destroyers; and he sees that gunnery, marksmanship, and other special
training are up to the highest mark. Such a lord should, above all, be a
man among men--one inspiring confidence both by knowing when and how
times of peril should be met and also through having himself done such
service in earlier life.
[Illustration: Robeson Channel and Lady Franklin Bay.]
Such is the life history of Admiral Sir George Le Clerc Egerton, who,
passing from a high sea command to duty as the naval aid to his majesty
the King, rose a few years since to this lofty station and assumed its
important duties. Great as may be the respect and high as can be the
admiration of the world for efficient performance of public duties by
officials of high station, yet the hearts of sympathetic, tender-hearted
men and women are more deeply moved whenever and where-ever they hear a
tale of self-sacrifice and of heroic comradeship. Such is the story of
this great naval lord, enacted by him as a sub-lieutenant far from the
civilized world, on the ice-bound coast of a desolate arctic land, for
the safety of an humble dog driver. The nobler the heart the greater is
its sense of duty to helpless dependents in deep distress. And more
heroic was the work of Lieutenant Egerton, flying his sledge flag,
"_Tanq je puis_ (All that I can)," than any done under his stately flag
as a naval lord or as admiral of the fleet.
When Captain Nares looked longingly southward from his ship on the
Arctic Ocean, wishing in his heart for word of his assistant, he was not
blind to the dangers and difficulties of the journey. The preceding
September gallant Lieutenant Rawson with strength and courage had
pressed on to Cape Rawson. The precipitous cliffs there made a farther
journey by land impossible, while the half-open sea was covered with a
shifting, ever-moving ice-pack that made the ocean as impassable for a
boat as the ice was for a sledge.
Now in late winter the surface of Robeson Channel was covered by a
solid, unmoving pack, but the cold was so intense that it could be
endured in the field only by men of iron. Day after day the temperature
was eighty degrees below the freezing-point, and even when it should
moderate the travelling party must be carefully chosen. Rawson was to go
as a passenger, for his ship was the _Discovery_ to which he was now to
return. Of all available officers Egerton seemed to have physical and
mental qualities that promised well. Naturally the dog driver--for they
were to travel with a dog-sledge--would have been Eskimo Frederick. In
this emergency Niels Christian Petersen offered his services, claiming
that his arctic experiences and powers of endurance fitted him for such
a journey. A Dane by birth, his years of service in Greenland had made
him a skilled dog driver, and experiences with Dr. Hayes in his
expedition of 1860 had made him familiar with field service. A vigorous
man of forty years, he seemed the best of the three sledgemen for stanch
endurance in such ice and weather.
Nares said in his letter of instructions: "In performing this duty in
the present cold weather, with the temperature more than seventy-seven
degrees below freezing, great caution is necessary." The date of
departure was originally fixed for March 4, 1876, the day on which the
retiring sun was first clearly seen above the southern hills at 11.30 A.
M. The cold was intense, being one hundred and one degrees below the
freezing-point. Whiskey placed on the floe froze hard in a few minutes.
Egerton's departure was therefore postponed until the prolonged cold
ended eight days later.
Meantime it was clear that such awful temperatures would seriously
affect the dogs, who were suffering in short exercise marches from the
action of the intense cold on the sharp, sand-like snow particles--all
separate. Nares relates that in crossing the trails of the dogs near the
ship he "noticed, lying on the floe, numerous frozen pellets of blood
which always form between the toes of these animals when working during
severely cold weather. The heat of the foot causes the snow to ball;
this soon changes into ice, and collecting between the toes cuts into
the flesh. On board of the _Resolute_ in 1853 we endeavored to fit our
dogs with blanket pads on their feet, but these were found to increase
the mischief by first becoming damp and then freezing, when the
hardened blanket cut into the sinews at the back of the dogs' legs."[16]
On March 12, 1876, Petersen threw forward the long flexible lash of his
Eskimo whip, calling sharply to the waiting dogs, and the party dashed
off in a temperature of minus thirty degrees. Petersen, Rawson, and
Egerton took turns on the sledge, one riding at a time. The others ran
behind the sledge, holding fast each to one of the upstanders.[17]
The dogs ran freely with their very light load of fifty-one pounds per
animal, for a full load would be about one hundred pounds for each dog.
An hour's travel in a cross wind--filled with the fine drift of
sand-like snow so common in the arctic--made them all put on their
_blinkers_ (face-protectors against the cold, made of carpeting
material) to keep their faces from freezing solid. Every care was taken
by the watchful Egerton to guard against frost-bites. Each quarter of an
hour he stopped the sledge for a moment, when each sledgeman examined
the faces of his comrades. Whenever a whitish spot was seen, the warm
palm of the bare hand was placed against the frozen flesh which at once
thaws.[18]
As closely as possible Egerton followed the favorite line of travel,
along the high ice-foot of the bold shore, inside or outside as
conditions required. This name is given to the ice-ledge which forms by
gradual accretion on the rocks or earth of the shore. As the main sea
ice rises and falls with the tides, the ice necessarily breaks near the
shore; the inner, fast-adhering ice is known as the ice-foot, the outer
ice as the main pack or the floe. The break is in the form of an
irregular fissure called the tidal crack. In the period of the spring
tides (when the tides have their greatest ranges) the main pack rises at
high tide above the ice-foot, and through the tidal crack flows the sea,
covering and filling the irregularities of the ice-foot. This overflow
freezes, leaving a smooth, level surface particularly favorable for
sledge travel until it is broken up by pressure from the moving pack.
Egerton found the ice-foot in good shape for some distance, but now and
then was driven to the main floe of Robeson Channel. The ice of the
strait was a mass of broken, irregular blocks, often loose in
arrangement and sharp in forms. Its surface and the difficulties of
travel may be best likened to marching over great blocks of anthracite
coal, save that the ice is bluish-white instead of black.
The lieutenant made a short day's march, going early into camp to avoid
overworking the unhardened muscles of man and beast--a sound practice
followed by wise arctic sledgemen at the beginning of a long journey.
Even in good weather the making of camp is the worst feature of arctic
travel. Everything is frozen solid, from the bread to the bacon, from
the tent to the sleeping-bags, which become as stiff as a board. Now
conditions were worse than usual owing to the increasing violence of the
blizzard. With snow-blinded eyes and a high, annoying wind the putting
up of the tent was most difficult, but it was finally done. This gave a
wind-protected place where the cook could light his lamp, melt his snow
for tea, and thaw out the frozen meat.
Meanwhile the two other men unpacked the sledge and removed the articles
into the tent. It was found that the driving wind had sifted fine snow
into the provision bags, the sleeping-gear, and everything that was at
all exposed. It was a necessary but most tedious labor to carefully
brush every particle of snow from each article before moving it into the
tent. They knew that a neglect so to do would be felt the next morning
through coatings of ice over their gear. While the cook was busy the
other sledgemen fed and picketed the dogs. If left loose these
domesticated wolves might possibly return to their fellows at the ship,
where good food and fighting company were to be had. If they remained at
the camp a loose dog would swallow down everything in the shape of skin,
hide, or food. More than once an arctic "tenderfoot" has wakened to find
his means of travel vanished--sledge-thongs and dog harness entirely
gone down the capacious throats of his ravenous team. Egerton, alive to
the situation, carefully stored harnesses and camp gear in the tent with
the provision bags.
So bad was the weather that it took six hours of steady labor to make
camp, change foot-gear, cook, eat, and enter their sleeping-bags.
With the night passed on the blizzard, and morning came--clear, calm,
and bitter cold. Even in the tent the temperature was forty-two degrees
below freezing. Frost-bitten hands, ravenous dogs, slowly melting snow,
and the watched pot that never boils made slow the striking of camp. It
was five and a half hours after leaving their sleeping-bags before they
were getting a spark of warmth into their benumbed limbs by steady
travel over the arctic trail. Though it was bitter cold the dogs kept
taut their traces and progress was rapid for several hours. From time to
time Petersen would sigh, and to Egerton's question, "What is the
matter?" answer that it was only a pain that would pass. But Egerton
felt anxious, as the Dane fell back now and then, and when he said that
the cramps in his stomach were terrible, halt was made in a sheltered
spot where the cooking-lamp could be lighted. In a half-hour a bowl of
boiling-hot tea was served, the finest known restorative of vigor and
warmth in cases of arctic exposure--far surpassing rum, brandy, or any
alcoholic stimulant. The Dane ate neither the offered bread nor the
bacon, and indeed of the latter Egerton said that it was frozen so
solidly that even a well man could not put tooth through the lean
parts.
Soon they came to very bad travelling, across steeply inclined snow
slopes along the bordering cliffs of the ice-bound sea that they were
forced to follow. In one place the trail led to a snow-drift thirty feet
across, whose steep seaward face ended on a rocky ledge with a sheer
outward fall of about thirty feet. It was clearly impossible to move the
sledge across, and, Alpine-glacier fashion, a road was slowly hewn out
with pick and axe. In other bad places the loaded sledge plunged
headlong from the top of high hummocks into masses of rubble-ice in the
intervening valleys. In such work animals are quite useless, for the
Eskimo dog pulls hard and steady only under conditions where the sledge
moves constantly forward. When once stalled the dog team sits on its
haunches, welcoming a rest, and watches events composedly. In such cases
the skilled driver untangles the traces, straightens out the team, calls
out shrilly, cracks his whip loudly, and, as the dogs spring forward,
gives a timely and skilful twist to the upstanders which helps the
sledge to a new start. If the sledge does not then move it must be
unloaded and the dogs again started, or it must be hauled by man-power
to an easier part of the trail.
This exhausting labor fell on the young officers, as Petersen was so
sick as to be unable to do his part. Standing around, the Dane began to
lose that warmth of vigorous circulation that alone keeps a man alive in
arctic cold. When finally the dog driver was seized with fits of
spasmodic shivering and his face showed frequent frostings, with bits of
seriously frozen flesh, Egerton became greatly alarmed. As they were
then making their way through very bad ice, camping at once was
impossible. From time to time, however, the officers, quitting the
sledge, took the sufferer in hand, and by five or ten minutes of work
would get him so thawed out that he could safely go on.
When a good camping-place was reached, though they had travelled only
six miles, Egerton at once stopped, hoping that a good night's rest with
warm drink and food would bring the Dane around.
The moment that the tent was up Egerton sent Petersen in with directions
to change his clothing, get into the sleeping-bag, and make himself
comfortable until dinner was ready. Meanwhile the officers unloaded the
sledge, picketed the dogs, and cared for the camp gear.
On crawling into the tent Egerton found Petersen groaning, and
on examination was shocked to find that he had crawled into the
sleeping-bag without changing his clothing. Especially bad was his
failure to replace his damp foot-gear by dry socks--a practice of
recognized necessity in arctic travel to prevent the feet from freezing
at night.
As he was groaning and complaining of much pain, Egerton set to work to
relieve him. Finding that both the hands and the feet were severely
frost-bitten, the man was made to strip off all his clothing, damp with
the sweat of travel, and put on dry undergarments. While Rawson was busy
making tea, Egerton set himself to the labor of thawing out the frost
and of restoring circulation by chafing the hardened limbs with his
bare hands--a long and difficult task. The sick man took a little hot
tea, which his stomach would not retain, but a dose of _sal volatile_
(ammonia) with hot rum and water gave temporary relief. A high wind
arose and the cold became most bitter, the temperature in the tent
falling to fifty-two degrees below the freezing-point. With a cold that
would nearly solidify mercury added to their mental troubles, the
sufferings of the party were extreme. The hands, face, and feet of the
invalid suffered repeated frost-bites, which the devoted officers were
hardly able to remove.
Exhausted as they were by the hard and unusual labors of the day,
sleeping only by snatches, they took watch and watch to care as best
they might for their sick comrade. Suffering extremely themselves from
the cold, they spared no efforts to give such personal services as might
comfort and benefit him. Again and again they restored circulation to
the frozen parts by chafing alternately with their naked hands and by
the application of flannel wraps heated by their own bodies. Such a
night seemed endless with its cares, its privations, and its anxieties,
and unfortunately the continuing gale made it impossible to move when
dawn came.
It was with great relief that they learned from the Dane that his cramps
had nearly disappeared, after he had taken his breakfast of hot cocoa
and soaked biscuit. This gave way to renewed anxiety when a few hours
later Petersen was attacked by violent and recurring fits of ague,
which they hoped to dispel by wrapping him up closely in all the
available robes and flannels.
Egerton no longer thought of going on to the _Discovery_, as it was now
a question whether or not the Dane would perish before he could be got
back to the _Alert_, less than twenty miles distant. While knowing that
travel in such a gale would be fatal to one if not to all, it was
certain that death would come to the Dane if they remained in the tent
with a cold of fifty-six degrees below freezing.
Rawson and Egerton agreed that the only chance of prolonging life lay in
building a snow house. Casting about they found conditions unfavorable
for a regular hut, and so decided to burrow a refuge hole in a great
snow-drift not far from their tent. First they sank a shaft six feet
deep to a solid foundation, and thence under-cut a tunnel inward for
some distance. At the end of it they hollowed out a space eight feet
square and four feet high. This work was intermittently done, as from
time to time they had to return to the terrible duty of thawing out and
restoring circulation to the limbs of the freezing man. Within six
hours, however, they had the shelter done and the Dane removed to it.
Both tent and sledge were drawn over the passageways so as to keep the
cold air out and the warmth from their bodies within. The cold being
still intense, they ran the risk of asphyxiation to insure Petersen's
comfort. Closing every crevice through which could come a breath of air,
they lighted their cooking-lamp and thus raised the temperature to seven
degrees above zero. Fortunately such transpiration of fresh air took
place through the snow as saved them from harm.
The day passed in this manner, small quantities of food being taken from
time to time by the sick man only to be rejected later. Indeed, the only
improvement in his condition seemed to come from those strong and
dangerous, though effective, restoratives, rum and ammonia, and these
were almost always followed by physical relapses. Answering repeatedly,
to inquiries, that he was warm and comfortable, in making him ready for
the night they found that his feet were perfectly gelid from the toes to
the ankles and that his hands were nearly as benumbed.
Realizing that he was nearly in extremities, Egerton and Rawson renewed
their devoted efforts. Each officer took a foot, stripped it naked, and
set to work to warm it by rubbing it with their bare hands. When
circulation was somewhat restored they applied flannels warmed against
their bodies, and replaced them as the used pieces became too cold for
service. The hands were similarly restored to warmth after two hours of
steady work. When the limbs were wrapped up in thick, dry, and warm
coverings they thought that the crisis was over.
During the night Egerton was awakened to find the Dane worse than ever.
Quite delirious, he had crawled from his sleeping-bag, began to eat
snow, and exposed his uncovered body to the cold. Ague fits attacked
him, his breath came in short convulsive gasps, and circulation was
almost entirely suspended, even in his body. Then followed the same
awful and tedious labor of thawing the man out and of guarding against a
repetition of such irrational conduct.
With the coming morn the weather was found to be nearly calm, and to
their great surprise the condition of Petersen was somewhat improved.
As it was certain death to remain where they were, Egerton decided to
start on the journey to the _Alert_, seventeen miles distant. Though
exceedingly feeble, Petersen thought that he could make the journey,
Egerton promptly abandoned everything except tent, sleeping-gear, and
food for a single day. Over the first part of the trail--most dangerous
for a sledge and very rough--Petersen managed to walk under the
stimulation of rum and ammonia. When he fell, prostrate and unconscious,
on the icy road and could go no farther, he was put into a sleeping-bag,
wrapped in warm robes, and lashed securely to the sledge.
The terrible conditions of the homeward journey must be imagined for
they cannot well be described. Once the sledge was precipitated down a
crevasse twenty-five feet deep, the sledge turning over and over three
times in its descent, hurling the dogs in all directions. With beating
hearts the officers scrambled down in haste to Petersen, expecting to
find him badly injured, but almost miraculously he had escaped with a
few bruises. At another point Egerton, who was driving, stopped the team
to clear the harness, a frequent duty, as the antics of the dogs tie up
in a sadly tangled knot the seal-thong traces by which the sledge is
hauled. With one of its occasional fits of uncontrol, the team started
on the jump, and dragged the spirited Egerton, who held fast to the
traces, a hundred yards through rough ice-masses before he could gain
control.
Whenever a stop was made to clear harness or to pick a way through bad
ice, the officers went through the slow and painful duty of thawing out
Petersen's limbs. Save a brief stop for hot tea to give warmth to and
quench the thirst of the invalid, they travelled ten hours, and when in
the last stages of physical exhaustion had the inexpressible happiness
of bringing their crippled comrade alive to the _Alert_.