THE COMING WINTER.
"_October 26._--The thermometer at 34° below zero, but fortunately no
wind blowing. We go on with the outdoor work. We burn but seventy pounds
of fuel a day, most of it in the galley--the fire being allowed to go out
between meals. We go without fire altogether for four hours of the night;
yet such is the excellence of our moss-walls and the air-proof of our
_tossut_, that, when our housing is arranged, and the main hatch secured
with a proper weather-tight screen of canvas, we shall be able, I hope,
to meet the extreme cold of February and March without fear.
"Darkness is the worst enemy we have to face; but we will strive against
the scurvy in spite of him, till the light days of sun and vegetation.
"Wilson and Brooks are my principal subjects of anxiety; for although
Morton and Hans are on their backs, making four of our ten, I can see
strength of system in their cheerfulness of heart. The best prophylactic
is a hopeful, sanguine temperament; the best cure, moral resistance--that
spirit of combat against every trial, which is alone true bravery.
[Sidenote: Fuel for the Winter]
"October 27.--The work is going on; we are ripping off the extra planking
of our deck for fuel during the winter. The cold increases fast, and
in spite of all my efforts we will have to burn largely into the brig.
I prepared for this two months ago, and satisfied myself, after a
consultation with the carpenter, that we may cut away some seven or
eight tons of fuel without absolutely destroying her sea-worthiness."
* * * * *
My narrative has now reached a period at which everything like progress
was suspended. The increasing cold and brightening stars,--the labours,
anxieties, and sickness that pressed upon us,--these almost engross the
pages of my journal. Now and then I find some marvel such as Petersen's
about the fox's dexterity as a hunter; Hans tells me of domestic life
in South Greenland, or of a seal-hunt and a wrecked kayack; or perhaps
M'Gary repeats his thrice-told tale of humour; but the night has closed
down upon us, and we are hibernating through it.
Yet some of these are topics of interest. The intense beauty of the
Arctic firmament can hardly be imagined. It looks close above our heads,
with its stars magnified in glory, and the very planets twinkling so much
as to baffle the observations of our astronomer. I am afraid to speak
of some of these night-scenes. I have trodden the deck and the floes,
when the life of earth seemed suspended,--its movements, its sounds, its
colouring, its companionships; and as I looked on the radiant hemisphere,
circling above me as if rendering worship to the unseen centre of light,
I have ejaculated in humility of spirit, "Lord, what is man that Thou art
mindful of him?" And then I have thought of the kindly world we had left,
with its revolving sunshine and shadow, and the other stars that gladden
it in their changes, and the hearts that warmed to us there, till I lost
myself in memories of those who are not--and they bore me back to the
stars again.
The narration of one day's hopes and fears, troubles, privations, and
trials,--I am sorry I cannot add triumphs,--so much resembles that
of the next, that I feel it would be but tiring the patience of the
reader were I to detail, with the same degree of minuteness which I have
hitherto done, the daily progress of our little party, and the great
cause in which we are engaged.
[Sidenote: Despondency]
The winter is now upon us, and little or nothing can be done either to
effect the liberation of the brig from her icy fetters, or to further our
explorations.
On board the brig the mode of life is the same as last winter, except
that we are subject to greater privations, consequent on the great
demands which have been made upon the stores. We have little to amuse
ourselves, and we go through the monotonous round of the day's duties
with as much celerity and ready will, as our drooping circumstances will
admit of.
I cannot hide from myself the fact that the main object of our expedition
must now be finally abandoned; and our duty, in the next instance, is
toward ourselves: to wait the return of light in order to accomplish our
escape from the ice,--with the brig if possible, if impossible, without
it,--before the frail appliances and stores which are now left are
entirely exhausted. Of course, it would be both impolitic and unwise to
apprise the crew of my thoughts on this painful subject, so I will keep
my own counsel in the meantime. I can see, however, that I am not alone
in my convictions.
During November, I observed a few of my best men getting nervous
and depressed--M'Gary paced the deck all one Sunday in a fit of
home-sickness, without eating a meal--I do my best to cheer them; but it
is hard work to hide one's own trials for the sake of others who have not
as many. I am glad of my professional drill and its companion influence
over the sick and toil worn. I could not get along at all unless I
combined the offices of physician and commander. You cannot punish sick
men.
December saw the brig fitted up for the winter; and, all things
considered, very comfortably we made it. Tom Hickey, our good-humoured,
blundering cabin-boy, decorated since poor Schubert's death with the
dignities of cook, is in that little dirty cot on the starboard-side;
the rest are bedded in rows, Mr Brooks and myself choke aft. Our bunks
are close against the frozen moss-wall, where we can take in the entire
family at a glance. The apartment measures twenty feet by eighteen; its
height six feet four inches at one place, but diversified elsewhere by
beams crossing at different distances from the floor. The avenue by which
it is approached is barely to be seen in the moss-wall forward. The
avenue--Ben-Djerback is our poetic name for it--closes on the inside with
a door well patched with flannel, from which, stooping upon all-fours,
you back down a descent of four feet in twelve, through a tunnel three
feet high and two feet six inches broad. It would have been a tight
squeeze for a man like Mr Brooks, when he was better fed and fatter.
Arrived at the bottom, you straighten yourself, and a second door admits
you into the dark and sorrowing hold, empty of stores, and stripped to
its naked ceiling for firewood. From this we grope our way to the main
hatch, and mount by a rude stairway of boxes into the open air.
"_December 2._--Many of the men are down with sickness and scurvy, and
this adds greatly to my anxiety. M'Gary, Riley, Wilson, and Brooks, are
all on the sick-list, and as for poor Morton, I am afraid I will lose
him. Poor fellows, I can ill afford to lose any of them; but if Morton
dies, it will be a great loss indeed. He is not only one of my most
intelligent men, but he is daring, cool, and every way trustworthy.
[Sidenote: Return of the Wanderers]
"On the 7th we had an agreeable surprise. I was asleep in the forenoon,
after the fatigue of an extra night-watch, when I was called to the deck
by the report of 'Esquimaux sledges.' They came on rapidly, five sledges,
with teams of six dogs each, most of the drivers strangers to us; and in
a few minutes were at the brig. Their errand was of charity: they were
bringing back to us Bonsall and Petersen, two of the party that left us
on the 28th of August.
"The party had many adventures and much suffering to tell of. They had
verified by painful and perilous experience all I had anticipated for
them. But the most stirring of their announcements was the condition
they had left their associates in, two hundred miles off, divided in
their counsels, their energies broken, and their provisions nearly gone.
Space and opportunity will not permit of my giving an account of their
wanderings and privations, but they were very severe. My first thought
was of the means of rescuing them. After a little necessary delay I
despatched a party to relieve them.
"On the morning of the 12th Brooks awoke me with the cry of 'Esquimaux
again!' I dressed hastily, and groping my way over the pile of boxes that
leads up from the hold into the darkness above, made out a group of human
figures, masked by the hooded jumpers of the natives. They stopped at the
gangway, and, as I was about to challenge, one of them sprang forward and
grasped my hand. It was Doctor Hayes. A few words, dictated by suffering,
certainly not by any anxiety as to his reception, and at his bidding the
whole party came upon deck. Poor fellows! I could only grasp their hands
and give them a brother's welcome.
"One by one they all came in and were housed. Poor fellows! as they threw
open their Esquimaux garments by the stove, how they relished the scanty
luxuries which we had to offer them! The coffee and the meat-biscuit
soup, and the molasses and wheat bread, even the salt pork which our
scurvy forbade the rest of us to touch,--how they relished it all! For
more than two months they had lived on frozen seal and walrus-meat.
"_December 23._--A very serious occurrence took place to-day, which might
have resulted in disastrous consequences. A watch had been stationed in
charge of the lamp, with the usual order of 'No uncovered lights.' He
deserted his post. Soon afterward Hans found the cooking-room on fire.
It was a horrible crisis; for no less than eight of our party were
absolutely nailed to their beds, and there was nothing but a bulkhead
between them and the fire. I gave short but instant orders, stationing a
line between the tide-hole and the main hatch, detailing two men to work
with me, and ordering all the rest who could move to their quarters. Dr
Hayes with his maimed foot, Mr Brooks with his contracted legs, and poor
Morton, otherwise among our best men, could do nothing.
[Sidenote: The Brig on Fire]
"Before we reached the fire the entire bulkhead was in a blaze as
well as the dry timbers and skin of the brig. Our moss walls, with
their own tinder-like material and their light casing of inflammable
wood, were entirely hidden by the flames. Fortunately the furs of the
recently-returned party were at hand, and with them I succeeded in
smothering the fire. But I was obliged to push through the blaze of our
sailcloth bulkhead in order to defend the wall; and in my anxiety to save
time, I had left the cabin without either cap or mittens. I got through
somehow or other, and tore down the canvas which hung against that
dangerous locality. Our rifles were in this corner, and their muzzles
pointing in all directions.
"The water now began to pass down; but with the discharge of the first
bucketful the smoke overcame me. As I found myself going I pushed for
the hatchway, knowing that the bucket-line would _feel_ me. Seeing was
impossible; but, striking Ohlsen's legs as I fell, I was passed up to
the deck, _minus_ beard, eyebrows, and forelock, _plus_ two burns on the
forehead and one on each palm.
"In about three minutes after making way with the canvas the fire was
got under, and in less than half an hour all was safe again. But the
transition, for even the shortest time, from the fiery Shadrachin
furnace-temperature below, to 46° below zero above, was intolerably
trying. Every man suffered, and few escaped without frost-bitten fingers.
"The remembrance of the danger and its horrible results almost
miraculously averted, shocks us all. Had we lost our brig, not a man
could have survived. Without shelter, clothing, or food, what help could
we have on the open ice field?
"_December 25, Christmas Day._--All together again, the returned and
the steadfast, we sat down to our Christmas dinner. There was more love
than with the 'stalled ox' of former times; but of herbs none. We forgot
our discomforts in the blessings which adhered to us still; and when
we thought of the long road ahead of us, we thought of it hopefully.
I pledged myself to give them their next Christmas with their homes;
and each of us drank his 'absent friends' with ferocious zest over
one-eighteenth part of a bottle of sillery,--the last of its hamper."
We entered upon the New-Year 1851 with mingled feelings of hope and
dismay. The long, dull, dreary months of January and February "dragged
their slow length along" without much variety or incidents worth noting.
We devised plans by which we hoped to be able to get away from our
frozen fortress, but could do nothing in the way of execution until the
much-longed-for light re-appeared.
"_February 10._--At length we have prognostications of the return of the
blessed sun. The day is beginning to glow with its rays. The south at
noon has almost an orange tinge. In ten days his direct rays will reach
our hill tops, and in a week after he will be dispensing his blessed
medicine among our sufferers."
It is hardly worth while to inflict on the reader a succession of
journal-records like these. They tell of nothing but the varying symptoms
of sick men, dreary, profitless hunts, relieved now and then by the
signalised incident of a killed rabbit or a deer seen, and the longed-for
advent of the solar light.
We worked on board--those of us who could work at all--at arranging a new
gangway with a more gentle slope, to let some of the party crawl up from
their hospital into the air. We were six, all told, out of eighteen, who
could affect to hunt, cook, or nurse.
For myself, my thoughts had occupation enough in the question of our
closing labours. I never lost my hope. I looked to the coming spring as
full of responsibilities; but I had bodily strength and moral tone enough
to look through them to the end. A trust, based on experience as well as
on promises, buoyed me up at the worst of times. Call it fatalism, as you
ignorantly may, there is that in the story of every eventful life which
teaches the inefficiency of human means and the present control of a
Supreme Agency. See how often relief has come at the moment of extremity,
in forms strangely unsought, almost at the time unwelcome; see, still
more, how the back has been strengthened to its increasing burden, and
the heart cheered by some conscious influence of an unseen Power.
"_February 21._--To-day the crests of the north-east headland were gilded
by true sunshine, and all who were able assembled on deck to greet it.
For the past ten days we have been watching the growing warmth of our
landscape, as it emerged from buried shadow, through all the stages of
distinctness of an India-ink washing, step by step, into the sharp, bold
definition of our desolate harbour scene. We have marked every dash of
colour which the great Painter in his benevolence vouchsafed to us;
and now the empurpled blues, clear, unmistakable, the spreading lake,
the flickering yellow; peering at all these, poor wretches! everything
seemed superlative lustre and unsurpassable glory. We had so grovelled in
darkness that we oversaw the light."
[Sidenote: Sickness]
My journal for March is little else than a chronicle of sufferings. Our
little party was quite broken down. Every man on board was tainted with
scurvy, and it was not common to find more than three who could assist in
caring for the rest. The greater number were in their bunks, absolutely
unable to stir.
The circumstances were well fitted to bring out the character of
individuals. Some were intensely grateful for every little act of
kindness from their more fortunate messmates; some querulous; others
desponding; others again wanted only strength to become mutinous. Brooks,
my first officer, as stalwart a man-o'-war's man as ever faced an enemy,
burst into tears when he first saw himself in the glass. On Sunday, the
4th, our last remnant of fresh meat had been doled out. Our invalids
began to sink rapidly. The region about our harbour ceased to furnish its
scanty contingent of game. One of our huntsmen, Petersen, never very
reliable in anything, declared himself unfit for further duty. Hans was
unsuccessful: he made several wide circuits, and saw deer twice; but once
they were beyond range, and the next time his rifle missed fire.
I tried the hunt for a long morning myself, without meeting a single
thing of life, and was convinced, by the appearance of things on my
return to the brig, that I should peril the morale, and with it the only
hope, of my command by repeating the experiment.
I laboured, of course, with all the ingenuity of a well-taxed mind, to
keep up the spirits of my comrades. I cooked for them all imaginable
compounds of our unvaried diet-list, and brewed up flax-seed and
lime-juice and quinine and willow-stems into an abomination which was
dignified as beer, and which some were persuaded for the time to believe
such. But it was becoming more and more certain every hour, that unless
we could renew our supplies of fresh meat, the days of the party were
numbered.
I spare myself, as well as the readers of this hastily-compiled volume,
when I pass summarily over the details of our condition at this time.
I look back at it with recollections like those of a nightmare. Yet I
was borne up wonderfully. I never doubted for an instant that the same
Providence which had guarded us through the long darkness of winter was
still watching over us for good, and that it was yet in reserve for
us--for some, I dared not hope for all--to bear back the tidings of our
rescue to a Christian land. But how I did not see.
The advent of April brings with it a better state of matters. Petersen
has so far recovered that he is able to go hunting, and he has met with
some success; and never was blessing more welcome than the fresh meat
with which his gun supplied our long starved table. Several of the crew
are on their legs again, and things generally begin to assume a healthier
aspect. Business, as far as our shattered constitutions will permit, is
now the order of the day.
"_April 20._--A relief-watch, of Riley, Morton, and Bonsall, are
preparing to saw out sledge runners from the cross-beams of the brig. It
is slow work. They are very weak, and the thermometer sinks at night to
-26°. Nearly all our beams have been used up for fuel; but I have saved
enough to construct two sledges. I want a sledge sufficiently long to
bring the weight of the whale-boat and her stowage within the line of
the runner; this will prevent her rocking and pitching when crossing
hummocked ice, and enable us to cradle her firmly to the sledge.
[Sidenote: All at Work]
"_April 21._--Morton's heel is nearly closed, and there is apparently a
sound bone underneath. He has been upon his back since October. I can now
set this faithful and valuable man to active duty very soon.
"The beam was too long to be carried through our hatches; we therefore
have sawed it as it stands, and will carry up the slabs separately. These
slabs are but one and a half inch wide, and must be strengthened by iron
bolts and cross-pieces; still they are all that we have. I made the bolts
out of our cabin curtain-rods, long disused. Mr Petersen aids Ohlsen in
grinding his tools. They will complete the job to-morrow,--for we must
work on Sunday now,--and by Monday be able to begin at other things.
Petersen undertakes to manufacture our cooking and mess-gear. I have a
sad-looking assortment of battered rusty tins to offer him; but with the
stove-pipe much may be done.
"_April 22._--Gave rest for all but the sawyers, who keep manfully at the
beam. Some notion of our weakness may be formed from the fact of these
five poor follows averaging among them but one foot per hour."
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