A STRANGE PEOPLE
Ten hours after the start of the submarine, Dave Tower's eye anxiously
watched the dial which indicated a rapidly lessening supply of oxygen,
while his keenly appraising mind measured time in terms of oxygen supply.
They were still scudding along beneath that continuous kaleidoscopic
panorama of green and blue lights and shadows, but no one noticed the
beauty of it now. All eyes were strained on the plate-glass windows
above, and they looked but for one thing--a spot, black as night itself,
which would mean open water above.
"There it is to starboard!" exclaimed the Doctor. Careful backing and
steering to starboard brought merely the disclosure that the Doctor's
eye-strain had developed to the point where it produced optical
illusions.
The oxygen was all this time dwindling. To avoid further waste of time,
Dave told his first mate to close his eyes for three minutes while he
kept watch, then to open them and "spell" him at the watch.
"Straight ahead! Quick!" muttered the mate, as the dial hung
fluttering at zero.
Seizing a lever here and there, watching this gauge, then that one, Dave
sent the craft slanting upward. Like some dark sea monster seeking air,
the "sub" shot toward the opening.
And now--now the prow tilted through space. Another lever and another,
and she balanced for a second on the surface. For a second only, then
came a crash. Too much eagerness, too great haste, had sent the
conning-tower against the solid six-foot floe.
With lips straight and white Dave grasped two levers at once. The craft
shot backward. There followed a sickening grind which could only tell of
interference with the propeller. Too quick a reverse had sent it against
the ice astern. Shutting off all power, Dave allowed her to rise
silently to the surface. Then, as silently, one member of the crew
opened the hatch and they all filed out.
"Propeller's still there," breathed one of the gobs in relief.
"'Fraid that won't help," said Dave.
"Jarvis," he said, turning to the engineer, "go below and start her up at
lowest speed."
In a moment there followed a jangling grind.
The engineer reappeared.
"As I feared, sir," he reported. "It's the shaft, sir. She'll have to go
to shore for repairs. Only a hot fire and heavy hammering can fix her.
Can't be done on board or on the ice."
"Ashore!" Dave rubbed his forehead, pulled his forelock, and tried to
imagine which way land might be after ten hours of travel in the
uncharted waters of the great Arctic sea.
"I'll leave it to you, Jarvis," he smiled. "If you can locate land, and
show us how to get there across these piles of ice with a disabled
submarine, you shall have a medal from the National Geographic Society."
The engineer was not a gob, strictly speaking. He was an old English
seaman, who had often sailed the Arctic in a whaler. Now he went below
with the words:
"I'll find the nearest land, right enough, me lad; but as to gittin'
there, that's quite another matter."
Thereafter the engineer might be seen from time to time dashing up the
hatchway to take an observation, then back to the chart-table, where he
examined first this chart, then that one. Some of the charts were new,
just from the hands of the hydrographic bureau. These belonged to the
craft. Others were soiled and torn; patched here and there, or reinforced
by cloth from a discarded shirt. These belonged to Jarvis, himself; had
been with him on many a journey and were now most often consulted.
"Near's h'I can make it, sir," he said, at last, "we're some two hundred
miles from Point Hope on the Alaska shores and a bit farther from a point
on the Russian shore, which the natives call On-na-tak, though what the
place is like h'I can't say, never 'aving been there. Far's h'I know, no
white man's been there, h'either; leastwise, not in our generation."
He studied the charts and made one further observation:
"Far's h'I can tell, sir," he smiled, "On-na-tak's h'our only chance.
Current sets that way h'at three knots an hour. That means we'll drift
there in four or five days. There'll be driftwood on the beach, and, with
good luck, we can fix 'er up there. Mayhap there's coal in the banks by
the sea, and that's greater luck for us if there is."
The Doctor, who had sat all this time in silence, smoking his black
cigars, now rose and began pacing the deck.
"Four or five days? Four or five, did you say? Great Creation! That will
mean the losing of the race!"
Jarvis nodded his head.
"H'anything less would mean that and more," said the old engineer. "Going
down with such a shaft would mean death to all of us."
The Doctor sighed. "We can't help it, I suppose--but it's a cruel blow."
"There's many a break in a long airplane voyage anywhere," he consoled
himself, "and I think the chances for accidents in the Arctic are about
trebled. I don't wish our rivals any fatal catastrophe, but a little
tough luck--say a wing demolished; or an engine burned out--might not be
so much to my displeasure."
The days that followed were spent in various ways. Hunting seals and
polar bears was something of an out-the-way pleasure for seafaring men.
Then there were checkers and cards, besides the daily guess as to their
position at noon.
Strangely enough, for once in the history of Arctic currents, they found
themselves being carried where they wanted to go, in a direct line for
Point On-na-tak, and during the entire four days and a half there was
hardly a point's deviation from the course. On the evening of the fourth
day, Dave thought he sighted land, and the midnight watch reported
definitely that there was land to the port bow; two points, one more
easily discerned than the other. This news brought the whole crew on
deck. And for two hours there was wild speculation as to the nature of
the country ahead of them; the possibility of inhabitants and their
treatment of strangers. Azazruk, the Eskimo, thought that he had heard
from an old man of his tribe that the point was inhabited by a people who
spoke a different language from that spoken by the Chukches of East Cape
and Whaling, on the Russian side of Behring Strait. But of this he could
not be sure. If the old engineer knew anything of these shores other than
the facts he had already stated concerning wood and coal, he did not
venture to say. And no one asked.
So they drifted on until the bleak, snow-capped peaks showed plainly.
Morning revealed a bay lying between the two points. Toward the entrance
to this bay they were drifting. One obstacle remained between them and
land. A half mile of the floe in which they were drifting lay between
them and the black stretch of open water which extended to the edge of
the solid shore ice, upon which the submarine might be dragged and over
which the shaft might be carried to land. But how was that stretch of
tumbled icefloe to be crossed? This, indeed, was a problem.
It was finally decided that Dave and the old engineer should spend the
forenoon exploring the ice to landward for a possible narrow channel that
would open a way to the water beyond. For this journey they took only
field-glasses, alpine staffs and a lunch in a sealskin sack. Had they
known better the nature of the land they were about to visit, they might
have gone more fully equipped.
"H'I don't mind tell' y', lad, that we was 'eaded for this point way
back some'ers in the late nineties," said the engineer, "but there
come a Nor'wester, an' the cap'in, 'e lost 'is 'ead and turned to run.
We'd froze in for the winter, but we'd a seen things if we 'ad. We'd a
seen 'um."
They were struggling over some pressure ridges and neither had breath to
spare for further talk just then. But presently, as they paused on a
high ridge of ice for a survey of their surroundings, Jarvis said:
"H'I said back there they might be coal in the banks. There is, an' other
minerals there are 'ere, too. H'it's a rich land, an' now we're 'ere we'd
make our fortunes if that daffy doctor wasn't 'eaded straight fer the
Pole, an' nobody 'ere to stop 'im."
"What do you make of it?" Dave, who had been studying the shore with the
glass, handed it to Jarvis: "Do you see something like a village?"
"Sure I do!" exclaimed the other excitedly. "Sure, there's a village, a
'ole 'eap of bloomin' 'eathen live up 'ere, h'only they hain't dull and
stupid like them down below."
"It's a strange-looking village."
"Sure, it is. Made all of reindeer skins and walrus pelts. Sure
it's different. Them natives up 'ere 'ave got reindeer, 'erds and
'erds of 'em."
"I suppose they've got walrus ivory, too," said Dave, warming to
the subject.
"Ho, yes, walrus h'ivory a-plenty, them 'eathen 'ave got. But walrus
h'ivory hain't so much. Too 'eavy to make a good cargo, an' not 'alf so
good as h'elephant h'ivory. But there's minerals, 'eaps of minerals, an'
we'd all be rich men an' it wasn't for the bloomin' doctor."
No channel to the shore having appeared, they were now making their way
along the edge of the open water. Suddenly the old engineer started:
"Did you see 'im?" he whispered.
"What? Where?" Dave stared at the old man, thinking he had suddenly
lost his head.
"H'it was a man. 'E popped 'is 'ead out, then beat it. One o' them
bloomin' 'eathens."
"Probably we'd better turn back."
"Huh!" sniffed the old man. "'Oo cares for the bloomin' 'eathen? 'Armless
they is, 'armless as babies."
They continued their travel, but the old man seemed distinctly uneasy. He
saw heads here and there. And soon, Dave, who did not have the trained
eye of the seaman, saw one also. At once he decided that they must turn
back to the submarine.
Hardly had they taken this course, when heads seemed to be peering out at
them from every ice-pile. It was when they were crossing a broad, flat
pan that matters came to a crisis. Suddenly brown, fur-clad figures
emerged from the piles at the edge of the pan and approached them. Their
soft, rawhide boots made no sound on the ice. Their lips were ominously
silent. There was a sinister gleam to the spears which they bore.
Half-way to the men, at a sign from the leader, they all paused. Then a
little knot gathered about the leader. Three men did the greater part of
the talking. They appeared to be urging the leader to action.
Dave, who knew that the old seaman was acquainted with several native
dialects, said:
"What do you make of it?"
"Can't get 'em straight," said Jarvis. "But them three 'eathen that's
talkin' loudest, them's 'eathen from another tribe 'er somethin'.
They're not the right color. Their eyes hain't right an' they don't speak
the language right. I think they got it in their 'eads that we h'ought
ter be pinched fer trespassin' 'er somethin' the like. But we'll fight
the bloomin' 'eathen, we will, h'if they start a bloomin' rumpus."
"What with?" smiled Dave.
The old seaman looked nonplused for a moment.
"Ho, well," he grinned, then. "Can't be any 'arm in goin' with the
bloomin' idgits a piece, h'if they request it."
The horde of natives did, at last, request it in a rather forceful and
threatening way. The three men, whom Jarvis had singled out as "'eathen
from another tribe," became so insulting that Dave could scarcely
restrain Jarvis from braining their leader on the spot.
They were led to the edge of the ice-floe where, hidden in a remote
corner, was an oomiak, a native boat of skins.
From here they were quickly paddled over to the shore. They were then
led up a steep bank, down a street lined with innumerable dome-like
houses covered with walrus-skin, and were finally dragged into the
largest of these houses and rudely thrust into an inner room. The door
slammed, and Jarvis laughed.
"Humph!" he chuckled. "Fancy putting a man in a bloomin' jail made
of deer skin. Much 'ead as the bloomin' 'eathen 'ave. Let's 'ave a
look at 'er."
He scratched a match and the look of astonishment that Dave found on his
face, as he stared about the inclosure, caused him to laugh, in spite of
their dilemma.
"H'ivory, walrus h'ivory! Walls, floor and ceilin' all h'ivory. Who'd
ever thought of that!" muttered the old seaman. "Wood'll burn and iron'll
rust; but h'ivory! h'ivory! Who'd ever thought of that for a prison?"