For the first time, ice now began to be a factor in our cruise. We
had noted a little along the Siberian shore churned by the surf when
the whaleboat attempted a landing off Serdze Kamen, but now as we
stood away from the coast, pack ice to the westward making out from
Koliutchin Bay bothered the ship noticeably, with loose ice in large
chunks bobbing about in the waves, necessitating constant conning by
the officer of the watch to avoid trouble. Finally at 10 P.M., with ice
growing heavier, while our course to Wrangel Land lay N.W. by N., the
captain changed course to N.E. for a few hours to take her out of it,
and then having come to open water, back to N.W., on which course under
sail and steam we stood on through the night and all next day with
beautifully clear cold weather attending us.
About a hundred miles to the southward of where Wrangel Land should
be, we made out the ice pack once more, extending this time from dead
ahead uninterruptedly around to the westward as far as eye could see.
Confronted thus by the solid pack across our path, there was nothing
for it but to head the _Jeannette_ off to the eastward, away from our
objective, skirting as closely as we dared that pack on our port side,
solid ice now seven feet thick!
Meantime a fine southeast breeze sprang up and to this we made all
sail, heading northeast with wind abeam and the ice dead to leeward,
while from the crow’s-nest, grizzled old Dunbar, our ex-whaler
ice-pilot, closely scanned the pack for any lead of open water through
it going northward, but he found not the slightest sign of one.
On that course we were constantly increasing our distance from Wrangel
Land instead of diminishing it, so De Long after morosely regarding for
some time the fine wake which our six-knot speed was churning up in the
icy water astern, finally ordered me when darkness fell to stop the
engines, bank fires, and save the coal, letting her go under sail alone
for the night.
Late in the first watch then, the engines were secured, the fires
heavily banked in the boilers to burn as little coal as possible, and
stocky Bartlett, fireman in charge of the watch, instructed to keep
them so. With all secured below I came up on deck, for a few minutes
before turning in looking off to leeward across the black water at the
vague loom of that solid ice pack fringing the near horizon.
Eight bells struck, the watch was changed, the men relieved tumbling
below to the forecastle with great alacrity for in spite of the
southeast breeze, there was a sharp chill in the cutting wind as the
_Jeannette_, with all sails drawing, plunged ahead at full speed.
Deeply laden and well heeled over by a stiff beam wind, we were running
with the lee scuppers awash, and the cold sea threatened momentarily to
flood over our low bulwark. What with the icy water and the chilly air,
the contrast with the warmth of the boiler room I had just left was
too much for me. With a final glance overhead at our straining cordage
and taut canvas and a wave to Dunbar who with dripping whiskers dimly
visible in the binnacle light on the bridge above me, had just taken
over the watch on deck, I ducked aft into the poop and wearily slid
into my bunk.
On the starboard tack with the wind freshening, the _Jeannette_ stood
on through the night. One bell struck. In the perfunctory routine drone
of the sea, the lookout reported the running lights burning bright and
the report was gravely acknowledged by Mr. Dunbar, though we might
just as well have saved our lamp oil, for what ship was there besides
ourselves in that vast polar solitude to whom those lights, steadily
burning in the darkness, might mean anything in the way of warning?
Nevertheless we were underway. Habit and the law of the sea are strong,
so on deck the incongruity of the reports struck no one. Hans Erichsen,
a huge Dane posted in the bow as lookout, turned his eyes lazily from
the gleaming lights in the rigging toward the bowsprit once more,
gradually accustoming them again to the darkness ahead.
And then hoarse and loud, nothing perfunctory this time about the call,
came Erichsen’s cry,
“Ice ho! Dead ahead and on the weather bow!”
On the silent _Jeannette_, that cry, cutting through the whistling of
the wind and the creaking of the rigging, echoed aft in the poop to
bring up in the twinkling of an eye, tumbling half clad out of their
bunks, Captain De Long, Mr. Chipp, and all the other officers.
“Hard alee!” roared Dunbar to the helmsman, desperately endeavoring to
bring her into the wind to avoid a collision, for with ice alee, ahead,
on the weather bow, there was no way out except to tack.
But the _Jeannette_, heavily laden and with a trim by the stern as she
then was, had never successfully come about except with the help of her
engines. And now the fires were banked! But she must tack or crash!
“All hands!”
Through the darkness echoed the rush of feet tumbling up from the
forecastle, racing to man sheets and braces, the shrill piping of the
bosun, hoarse orders, then a bedlam of curses and the howling of dogs
as all over the deck, men and animals collided in the night.
In response to her hard over rudder, the _Jeannette’s_ bow swung slowly
to starboard while from ahead, plainly audible now on our deck, came
the roar of the waves breaking high on the solid pack.
Would she answer her helm and tack?
Breathlessly we waited while with jibs and headsails eased and spanker
hauled flat aft, the _Jeannette_ rounded sluggishly toward the wind and
the open sea and away from that terrible ice.
Then she stopped swinging, hung “in irons.” With our useless sails
flapping wildly and no steam to save us, helplessly we watched with
eyes straining through the darkness as the _Jeannette_ drove broadside
to leeward, straight for the ice pack!