Egerton ascribed his final success to Rawson's labors, for in his
official report he says that high praise is due Lieutenant Rawson "for
the great aid derived from his advice and help; without his unremitting
exertions and cheerful spirit, my own efforts would have been unavailing
to return to the ship with my patient alive."
In these hours of splendid devotion to their disabled comrade these
young officers, absolutely disregarding personal considerations,
displayed that contempt for external good which Emerson indicates as the
true measure of every heroic act.
FOOTNOTES:
[16] In my own expedition we shod our dogs for travel in very cold
weather with neatly fitting, thin, oil-tanned seal-skin shoes. Though a
shoe was occasionally lost, as they had to be tied on loosely, the feet
of the dogs were well protected.
[17] The upstanders are stout poles rising from the extreme rear of the
sledge by which the driver is able to steer or direct the course of the
sledge itself.
[18] The rubbing of frozen places with snow, so often recommended, is
most injurious in the extreme north. In my own expedition it was once
suggested to a man whose nose was freezing, as a matter of joke. Taken
seriously, the unfortunate man rubbed his nose freely. The sharp,
sand-like particles of snow acted like a file and scraped off the skin
so that it was a week or more before the man's face was healed.
LIFE ON AN EAST GREENLAND ICE-PACK
"And now there came both mist and snow,
And it grew wondrous cold:
And ice, mast-high, came floating by,
As green as emerald."
--COLERIDGE.
The second German north polar expedition sailed under Captain Karl
Koldewey in 1869, with the intention of landing on the coast of
East Greenland, near Sabine Island, whence by winter sledging the
explorations of the northern coasts of Greenland and of the north polar
basin were to be undertaken. The two ships of the expedition, the
_Germania_ and the _Hansa_, reached by the middle of July the edge of
the great ice-pack, which in enormous and generally impenetrable
ice-masses streams southward from the Arctic Ocean between Greenland and
Spitzbergen. As an accompaniment to this vast ice-field come from the
glacier fiords of East Greenland most of the enormous icebergs which are
sighted and encountered by transatlantic steamships off the banks of
Newfoundland. The ships separating through misunderstanding of a signal,
the _Germania_, a steam-ship, succeeded in working her way through the
ice-stream to Sabine Island, where her crew carried out its programme.
The _Hansa_, without steam-power, and so dependent on sails, became
entangled in the pack in early August and was never able to escape
therefrom. The fate of the _Hansa_ and the experiences of her crew form
the subject-matter of this sketch.
* * * * *
Until the _Hansa_ was fast frozen in the pack, on September 9, Captain
Hegemann was prepared for any emergency, whether the ship was crushed or
if opening lanes of water should permit escape to Sabine Island from
which they were only forty miles distant. Completely equipped and
victualled boats were kept on deck so that they could be lowered to the
ice at any moment.
When the ship was frozen in the captain faced resourcefully the serious
question of wintering in the pack. It was known to him that no ship had
ever escaped from such wintering in the drifting ice-pack of the
Greenland Sea, and indeed the violent and frequently recurring pressures
of the ice-field pointed to the early loss of their ship. Life might
be possible, but health and comfort could not be had in boats covered
with canvas. Cramped quarters, severe cold, damp bedding, and absence
of facilities for cooking forbade such an attempt. While others
suggested the snow houses of the Eskimo, one fertile mind urged that
a living-house be built of coal, which was done.
[Illustration: Southeastern Greenland.]
Fortunately the coal supply was in the form of briquets, coal tiles nine
inches broad, quite like ordinary bricks in shape. Thus went up the most
remarkable construction in the annals of polar history, a house of coal
on a foundation of ice. The _Hansa_ was moored to one of the so-called
paleocrystic floe-bergs several square miles in extent, nearly fifty
feet thick, with fresh-water ponds and an uplifted central mass
thirty-nine feet high, near which hill the coal house was built to
insure its safety. With water from the pools to pour on the finely
powdered snow, the arctic masons had a cement that quickly bound
together the tiles as they were laid in courses. The ship's spars were
laid crossways for the main rafters, and other wood was used for the
completion of the roof-frame, over which were stretched reed mattings
and sail-cloth. Coal tiles made a level and convenient floor, whence in
case of necessity they might draw for fuel in the late winter. With a
double door and provision caches in the house they awaited the action of
the pack, still comfortable in the ship's cabins.
With joy the hunters learned that the ice-field was not wholly desolate,
but that it was the hunting-field of the polar bear, who was followed by
the arctic fox, who deftly snapped up under bruin's very nose any
outlying bit of seal that was within reach.
In the early days, before the pack had become an unbroken ice-mass, a
hunter espied on an adjacent floe a large she bear with her cub. A boat
was quickly put off to cross the narrow water-lane, when to the surprise
of every one the old bear, followed by the cub, rushed forward to meet
them at the edge of the floe, gnashing her teeth and licking her chops,
clearly unfamiliar with man and his weapons and anxious for a meal. As
they fired the bear fell dead on the snow, but the cub instead of
running remained by her side licking and caressing her mother in the
most affectionate manner. She paid no attention at first to the
advancing hunters, save to alertly elude the many efforts to cast a
noose over her head. Finally the cub became alarmed, and with piteous
howlings ran away, escaping over the rugged pack despite a shot which
wounded her.
In the middle of October came a series of violent blizzards which
foretold the coming fate of the ship. The groaning, grinding ice-field
was breaking up under enormous pressures that came from the colliding
floe-bergs, which were revolving under various forces of wind and sea
currents. Though trembling violently, with her masts swaying to and fro,
the _Hansa_ was spared, great fissures in the floe near by showing how
close was her escape. All of the crew were busy preparing for the worst,
fuel, food, and clothing being carried in quantities to the house.
The end came on October 19 within four miles of the East Greenland
coast, when a gale sprang up and the collision of the fast ice of the
shore and the moving sea-pack had already increased the ice-pressures
with fearful results. Mighty blocks of granite-like ice shoving under
the bow of the ship raised it seventeen feet above its former position
in the ice, while the after part of the _Hansa_ was frozen in so tightly
or jammed so badly that it could not rise, under which conditions it was
certain that the stern would be racked and strained beyond service.
The dangerous situation was dramatic in the extreme. With the dying wind
the sky cleared, the stars shone with keen brilliancy, the cold
increased sharply to forty-five degrees below the freezing-point, while,
as if in mockery of man's sorrows, the merry dancers flashed upward in
dagger-shaped gleams wavering an instant and then vanishing, only to
come again in new forms with ever-changing colors. To a mere observer it
would have been a perfect picture of adverse arctic conditions,
wonderful in its aspects and surpassingly beautiful to an artistic eye.
With relaxing pressures the great ice-ridges slowly decreasing in height
fell apart, and the ship was again on her usual level, but rent fatally
and making water fast. In vain did the whole crew strain at the pumps,
while the outpouring water from the spouts froze on the deck as it
fell--the water gained steadily and orders to save the cargo were given.
The worn-out men worked frantically, dragging out bedding, food,
clothing, medicines, guns, ammunition, sledges, boat furniture, and
everything that could be of service for life on the floe. Best of all,
for their comfort and amusement, they hoisted over the rail of the
ship's galley heating-stoves, games, and books; they felled the masts
for fuel and stripped the sails for house use. Fortunately the energetic
seamen were able to strip the ship of all useful articles before she
sank on October 22, 1869, in 70 deg. 52' north latitude, a few miles from
the Greenland coast.
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 shore 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 masses 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 assured
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
carcass 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 principal 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 passed 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 God,
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 masses. 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-masses. 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 God'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
passing through the floor of the house. Captain Hegemann says: "God 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 amusement 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.