THE FAST TREK BACK TO LAND
The long trail was finished, the work was done, and there was only left
for us to return and tell the tale of the doing. Reaction had set in,
and it was with quavering voice that Commander Peary gave the order to
break camp. Already the strain of the hard upward-journey was beginning
to tell, and after the first two marches back, he was practically a dead
weight, but do not think that we could have gotten back without him, for
it was due to the fact that he was with us, and that we could depend
upon him to direct and order us, that we were able to keep up the
break-neck pace that enabled us to cover three of our upward marches on
one of our return marches, and we never forgot that he was still the
heart and head of the party.
It was broad daylight and getting brighter, and accordingly I knew
little fear, though I did think of the ghosts of other parties,
flitting in spectral form over the ice-clad wastes, especially of that
small detachment of the Italian expedition of the Duke D'Abruzzi, of
which to this day neither track, trace, nor remembrance has ever been
found. We crossed lead after lead, sometimes like a bare-back rider in
the circus, balancing on cake after cake of ice, but good fortune was
with us all of the way, and it was not until the land of recognizable
character had been lifted that we lost the trail, and with the land in
sight as an incentive, it was no trouble for us to gain the talus of the
shore ice and find the trail again.
When we "hit the beach for fair" it was early in the morning of April
23, 1909, nearly seventeen days since we had left the Pole, but such a
seventeen days of haste, toil, and misery as cannot be comprehended by
the mind. We who experienced it, Commander Peary, the Esquimos, and
myself, look back to it as to a horrid nightmare, and to describe it is
impossible for me.
Commander Peary had taken the North Pole by conquest, in the face of
almost insuperable natural difficulties, by the tremendous
fighting-power of himself. The winning of the North Pole was a fight
with nature; the way to the Pole that had been covered and retraced by
Commander Peary lay across the ever moving and drifting ice of the
Arctic Ocean. For more than a hundred miles from Cape Columbia it was
piled in heavy pressure ridges, ridge after ridge, some more than a
hundred feet in height. In addition, open lanes of water held the
parties back until the leads froze up again, and continually the steady
drift of the ice carried us back on the course we had come, but due to
his deathless ambition to know and to do, he had conquered. He had added
to the sum of Earth's knowledge, and proven that the mind of man is
boundless in its desire.
The long quest for the North Pole is over and the awful space that
separated man from the _Ultima Thule_ has been bridged. There is no more
beyond; from Cape Columbia to Cape Chelyuskin, the route northward to
the Pole, and southward again to the plains of Asia, is an open book and
the geographical mind is at rest.
We found the abandoned igloos of Crane City and realized that Captain
Bartlett had reached the land safely. The damage due to the action of
the storms was not material. We made the necessary repairs, and in a few
minutes tea was boiled and rations eaten, and we turned in for sleep.
For practically all of the two days following, that was what we did:
sleep and eat; men and dogs thoroughly exhausted; and we slept the sleep
of the just, without apprehensions or misgivings. Our toboggan from the
Pole was ended.
* * * * *
Different from all other trips, we had not on this one been maddened by
the pangs of hunger, but instead we felt the effects of lack of sleep,
and brain- and body-fatigue. After reaching the land again, I gave a
keen searching look at each member of the party, and I realized the
strain they had been under. Instead of the plump, round countenances I
knew so well, I saw lean, gaunt faces, seamed and wrinkled, the faces of
old men, not those of boys, but in their eyes still shone the spark of
resolute determination.
Commander Peary's face was lined and seamed, his beard was fully an
inch in length, and his mustaches, which had been closely cropped before
he left the ship, had again attained their full flowing length. His
features expressed fatigue, but the heart-breaking look of sadness, that
had clung to him since the failure of the 1906 expedition, had vanished.
From his steel-gray eyes flashed forth the light of glorious victory,
and though he always carried himself proudly, there had come about him
an air of erect assurance that was exhilarating.
When I reached the ship again and gazed into my little mirror, it was
the pinched and wrinkled visage of an old man that peered out at me, but
the eyes still twinkled and life was still entrancing. This wizening of
our features was due to the strain of travel and lack of sleep; we had
enough to eat, and I have only mentioned it to help impress the fact
that the journey to the Pole and back is not to be regarded as a
pleasure outing, and our so-called jaunt was by no means a cake-walk.