THE TALK OF THE CREW.
Nevertheless, by taking advantages of such openings as there were, the
_Forward_ succeeded in getting a few minutes farther north; but,
instead of escaping the enemy, it would soon be necessary to attack
it; ice-fields of many miles in extent were drawing together, and as
these moving masses often represent a pressure of ten millions of
tons, they were obliged to take every precaution against being crushed
by them. Ice-saws were placed outside the vessel, where they could be
used without delay.
Some of the crew endured their hard toil without a murmur, but others
complained or even refused to obey orders. While they were putting the
saws in place, Garry, Bolton, Pen, and Gripper exchanged their diverse
opinions as follows.
"Deuce take it," said Bolton, cheerfully; "I don't know why it just
occurs to me that in Water Street there's a comfortable tavern, where
one might be very well off between a glass of gin and a bottle of
porter. Can you see it from here, Gripper?"
"To tell the truth," answered the sailor who had been addressed, and
who generally pretended to be very sullen, "I must say I can't see it
from here."
"That's merely your way of talking, Gripper; it is evident that, in
those snow towns which Dr. Clawbonny is always admiring, there's no
tavern where a poor sailor can moisten his throat with a drink or two
of brandy."
"You may be sure of that, Bolton; and you might add that on board of
this ship there's no way of getting properly refreshed. A strange
idea, sending people into the northern seas, and giving them nothing
to drink!"
"Well," answered Garry, "have you forgotten, Gripper, what the doctor
said? One must go without spirits if he expects to escape the scurvy,
remain in good health, and sail far."
"I don't care to sail far, Garry; and I think it's enough to have come
as far as this, and to try to get through here where the Devil doesn't
mean to let us through."
"Well, we sha'n't get through," retorted Pen. "O, when I think I have
already forgotten how gin tastes!"
"But," said Bolton, "remember what the doctor said."
"O," answered Pen, with his rough voice, "that's all very well to say!
I fancy that they are economizing it under the pretext of saving our
health."
"Perhaps that devil Pen is right," said Gripper.
"Come, come!" replied Bolton, "his nose is too red for that; and if a
little abstinence should make it a trifle paler, Pen won't need to be
pitied."
"Don't trouble yourself about my nose," was the answer, for Pen was
rather vexed. "My nose doesn't need your advice; it doesn't ask for
it; you'd better mind your own business."
"Come, don't be angry, Pen; I didn't think your nose was so tender. I
should be as glad as any one else to have a glass of whiskey,
especially on such a cold day; but if in the long run it does more
harm than good, why, I'm very willing to get along without it."
"You may get along without it," said Warren, the stoker, who had
joined them, "but it's not everybody on board who gets along without
it."
"What do you mean, Warren?" asked Garry, looking at him intently.
"I mean that for one purpose or another there is liquor aboard, and I
fancy that aft they don't get on without it."
"What do you know about it?" asked Garry.
Warren could not answer; he spoke for the sake of speaking.
"You see, Garry," continued Bolton, "that Warren knows nothing about
it."
"Well," said Pen, "we'll ask the commander for a ration of gin; we
deserve it, and we'll see what he'll say."
"I advise you not to," said Garry.
"Why not?" cried Pen and Gripper.
"Because the commander will refuse it. You knew what the conditions
were when you shipped; you ought to think of that now."
"Besides," said Bolton, who was not averse to taking Garry's side, for
he liked him, "Richard Shandon is not master; he's under orders like
the rest of us."
"Whose orders?" asked Pen.
"The captain's."
"Ah, that ridiculous captain's!" cried Pen. "Don't you know there's no
more captain than there is tavern on the ice? That's a mean way of
refusing politely what we ask for."
"But there is a captain," persisted Bolton; "and I'll wager two
months' pay that we shall see him before long."
"All right!" said Pen; "I should like to give him a piece of my mind."
"Who's talking about the captain?" said a new speaker.
It was Clifton, who was inclined to be superstitious and envious at
the same time.
"Is there any news about the captain?" he asked.
"No," a single voice answered.
"Well, I expect to find him settled in his cabin some fine morning,
and without any one's knowing how or whence he came aboard."
"Nonsense!" answered Bolton; "you imagine, Clifton, that he's an imp,
a hobgoblin such as are seen in the Scotch Highlands."
"Laugh if you want to, Bolton; that won't alter my opinion. Every day
as I pass the cabin I peep in through the keyhole, and one of these
days I'll tell you what he looks like, and how he's made."
"O, the devil!" said Pen; "he'll look like everybody else. And if he
wants to lead us where we don't want to go, we'll let him know what we
think about it."
"All right," said Bolton; "Pen doesn't know him, and wants to quarrel
with him already."
"Who doesn't know all about him?" asked Clifton, with the air of a man
who has the whole story at his tongue's end; "I should like to know
who doesn't."
"What do you mean?" asked Gripper.
"I know very well what I mean."
"But we don't."
"Well, Pen has already had trouble with him."
"With the captain?"
"Yes, the dog-captain; for it's the same thing precisely."
The sailors gazed at one another, incapable of replying.
"Dog or man," muttered Pen, between his teeth, "I'll bet he'll get his
account settled one of these days."
"Why, Clifton," asked Bolton, seriously, "do you imagine, as Johnson
said in joke, that that dog is the real captain?"
"Certainly, I do," answered Clifton, with some warmth; "and if you had
watched him as carefully as I have, you'd have noticed his strange
ways."
"What ways? Tell us."
"Haven't you noticed the way he walks up and down the poop-deck as if
he commanded the ship, keeping his eye on the sails as if he were on
watch?"
"That's so," said Gripper; "and one evening I found him with his paws
on the wheel."
[Illustration]
"Impossible!" said Bolton.
"And then," continued Clifton, "doesn't he run out at night on the
ice-fields without caring for the bears or the cold?"
"That's true," said Bolton.
"Did you ever see him making up to the men like an honest dog, or
hanging around the kitchen, and following the cook when he's carrying
a savory dish to the officers? Haven't you all heard him at night,
when he's run two or three miles away from the vessel, howling so that
he makes your blood run cold, and that's not easy in weather like
this? Did you ever seen him eat anything? He never takes a morsel from
any one; he never touches the food that's given him, and, unless some
one on board feeds him secretly, I can say he lives without eating.
Now, if that's not strange, I'm no better than a beast myself."
"Upon my word," answered Bell, the carpenter, who had heard all of
Clifton's speech, "it may be so."
But all the other sailors were silent.
"Well, as for me," continued Clifton, "I can say that if you don't
believe, there are wiser people on board who don't seem so sure."
"Do you mean the mate?" asked Bolton.
"Yes, the mate and the doctor."
"Do you think they fancy the same thing?"
"I have heard them talking about it, and they could make no more out
of it than we can; they imagined a thousand things which did not
satisfy them in the least."
"Did they say the same things about the dog that you did, Clifton?"
asked the carpenter.
"If they were not talking about the dog," answered Clifton, who was
fairly cornered, "they were talking about the captain; it's exactly
the same thing, and they confessed it was all very strange."
"Well, my friends," said Bell, "do you want to hear my opinion?"
"What is it!" they all cried.
"It is that there is not, and there will not be, any other captain
than Richard Shandon."
"And the letter?" said Clifton.
"The letter was genuine," answered Bell; "it is perfectly true that
some unknown person has equipped the _Forward_ for an expedition in
the ice; but the ship once off, no one will come on board."
"Well," asked Bolton, "where is the ship going to?"
"I don't know; at the right time, Richard Shandon will get the rest of
the instructions."
"But from whom?"
"From whom?"
"Yes, in what way?" asked Bolton, who was becoming persistent.
"Come, Bell, an answer," said the other sailors.
"From whom? in what way? O, I'm sure I don't know!"
"Well, from the dog!" cried Clifton. "He has already written once, and
he can again. O, if I only knew half as much as he does, I might be
First Lord of the Admiralty!"
"So," added Bolton, in conclusion, "you persist in saying that dog is
the captain?"
"Yes, I do."
"Well," said Pen, gruffly, "if that beast doesn't want to die in a
dog's skin, he'd better hurry and turn into a man; for, on my word,
I'll finish him."
"Why so?" asked Garry.
"Because I want to," answered Pen, brutally; "and I don't care what
any one says."
"You have been talking long enough, men," shouted the boatswain,
advancing at the moment when the conversation threatened to become
dangerous; "to work, and have the saws put in quicker! We must get
through the ice."
"Good! on Friday too," answered Clifton, shrugging his shoulders. "You
won't find it so easy to cross the Polar Circle."
Whatever the reason may have been, the exertions of the crew on that
day were nearly fruitless. The _Forward_, plunging, under a full head
of steam, against the floes, could not separate them; they were
obliged to lie at anchor that night.
On Saturday, the temperature fell still lower under the influence of
an east-wind; the sky cleared up, and they all had a wide view over
the white expense, which shone brilliantly beneath the bright rays of
the sun. At seven o'clock in the morning, the thermometer stood at 8
degrees above zero.
The doctor was tempted to remain quietly in his cabin, or read over
the accounts of arctic journeys; but he asked himself, following his
usual habit, what would be the most disagreeable thing he could do at
that moment. He thought that to go on deck on such a cold day and help
the men would not be attractive. So, faithful to his line of conduct,
he left his well-warmed cabin, and went out to help tow the ship. He
looked strange with his green glasses, which he wore to protect his
eyes against the brilliancy of the sun, and after that he always took
good care to wear snow-spectacles as a security against the
inflammation of the eyes, which is so common in these latitudes.
[Illustration]
By evening the _Forward_ had got several miles farther north, thanks
to the energy of the men and the intelligence of Shandon, who was
quick at utilizing every favorable circumstance; at midnight they
crossed the sixty-sixth parallel, and the lead announcing a depth of
twenty-three fathoms, Shandon knew that he was in the neighborhood of
the shoal on which her Majesty's ship _Victory_ grounded. Land lay
thirty miles to the east.
But then the mass of ice, which had hitherto been stationary,
separated, and began to move; icebergs seemed to rise in all points of
the horizon; the brig was caught in a number of whirlpools of
irresistible force; controlling her became so hard, that Garry, the
best steersman, took the helm; the masses began to close behind the
brig, hence it was necessary to cut through the ice; both prudence and
duty commanded them to go forward. The difficulties were enhanced by
the impossibility of Shandon's fixing the direction of the brig among
all the changing points, which were continually shifting and
presenting no definite point to be aimed at.
The crew were divided into two forces, and one stationed on the
starboard, the other on the larboard side; every man was given a long
iron-headed pole, with which to ward off threatening pieces of ice.
Soon the _Forward_ entered such a narrow passage between two lofty
pieces, that the ends of the yards touched its solid walls; gradually
it penetrated farther into a winding valley filled with a whirlwind of
snow, while the floating ice was crashing ominously all about.
But soon it was evident that there was no outlet to this gorge; a huge
block, caught in the channel, was floating swiftly down to the
_Forward_; it seemed impossible to escape it, and equally impossible
to return through an already closed path.
Shandon and Johnson, standing on the forward deck, were viewing their
position. Shandon with his right hand signalled to the man at the
wheel what direction he was to take, and with his left hand he
indicated to James Wall the orders for the engines.
"What will be the end of this?" asked the doctor of Johnson.
"What pleases God," answered the boatswain.
The block of ice, eight hundred feet high, was hardly more than a
cable's length from the _Forward_, and threatened to crush it.
Pen broke out with a fearful oath.
"Silence!" cried a voice which it was impossible to recognize in the
roar of the hurricane.
The mass appeared to be falling upon the brig, and there was an
indefinable moment of terror; the men, dropping their poles, ran aft
in spite of Shandon's orders.
Suddenly, a terrible noise was heard; a real water-spout fell on the
deck of the brig, which was lifted in the air by a huge wave. The crew
uttered a cry of terror, while Garry, still firm at the wheel, kept
the course of the _Forward_ steady, in spite of the fearful lurch.
[Illustration]
And when they looked for the mountain of ice, it had disappeared; the
passage was free, and beyond, a long channel, lit up by the sun,
allowed the brig to continue her advance.
"Well, Dr. Clawbonny," said Johnson, "can you explain that?"
"It's very simple, my friend," answered the doctor. "It happens very
often; when these floating masses get detached in a thaw, they float
away in perfect equilibrium; but as they get towards the south, where
the water is relatively warmer, their base, eaten away by running into
other pieces, begins to melt, and be undermined; then comes a moment
when the centre of gravity is displaced, and they turn upside down.
Only, if this had happened two minutes later, it would have fallen on
the brig and crushed us beneath it."
[Illustration]