The Voyages and Adventures of Captain Hatteras/Chapter XXIII

Les Aventures du capitaine Hatteras - Première partie - 23

Hatteras, after seeing to the anchorage of the ship, returned to his cabin, took out his chart, and marked his position on it very carefully; he found himself in latitude 76°57', and longitude 99°20', that is to say, only three minutes from latitude 77°. It was here that Sir Edward Belcher passed his first winter with the Pioneer and Assistance. It was from here that he organized his sledge and canoe expeditions; he discovered Table Island, North Cornwall, Victoria Archipelago, and Belcher Channel. Having gone beyond latitude 78°, he saw the coast inclining towards the southeast. It seemed as if it ought to connect with Jones's Strait, which opens into Baffin's Bay. But, says the report, an open sea, in the northwest, “stretched as far as the eye could reach.”

Hatteras gazed with emotion at that portion of the charts where a large white space marked unknown regions, and his eyes always returned to the open polar sea.

“After so many statements,” he said to himself,—“after the accounts of Stewart, Penny, and Belcher, doubt is impossible! These bold sailors saw, and with their own eyes! Can I doubt their word? No! But yet if this sea is closed by an early winter— But no, these discoveries have been made at intervals of several years; this sea exists, and I shall find it! I shall see it!”

Hatteras went upon the quarter-deck. A dense mist enveloped the Forward; from the deck one could hardly see the top of the mast. Nevertheless, Hatteras ordered the ice-master below, and took his place; he wanted to make use of the first break in the fog to look at the horizon in the northwest.

Shandon took occasion to say to the second mate,—

“Well, Wall, and the open sea?”

“You were right, Shandon,” answered Wall, “and we have only six weeks' coal in the bunkers.”

“The doctor will invent some scientific way,” continued Shandon, “of heating us without fuel. I've heard of making ice with fire; perhaps he will make fire with ice.”

Shandon returned to his cabin, shrugging his shoulders.

The next day, August 20th, the fog lifted for a few minutes. From the deck they saw Hatteras in his lofty perch gazing intently towards the horizon; then he came down without saying a word and ordered them to set sail; but it was easy to see that his hopes had been once more deceived.

The Forward heaved anchor and resumed her uncertain path northward. So wearisome was it that the main-topsail and fore-topsail yards were lowered with all their rigging; the masts were also lowered, and it was no longer possible to place any reliance on the varying wind, which, moreover, the winding nature of the passes made almost useless; large white masses were gathering here and there in the sea, like spots of oil; they indicated an approaching thaw; as soon as the wind began to slacken, the sea began to freeze again, but when the wind arose this young ice would break and disperse. Towards evening the thermometer fell to 17°.

When the brig arrived at the end of a closed pass, it rushed on at full steam against the opposing obstacle. Sometimes they thought her fairly stopped; but some unexpected motion of the ice-streams would open a new passage into which she would plunge boldly; during these stoppages the steam would escape from the safety-valves and fall on the deck in the form of snow. There was another obstacle to the progress of the brig; the ice would get caught in the screw, and it was so hard that the engine could not break it; it was then necessary to reverse the engines, turn the brig back, and send some men to free the snow with axes and levers; hence arose many difficulties, fatigues, and delays.

It went on in this way for thirteen days; the Forward advanced slowly through Penny Strait. The crew murmured, but obeyed; they knew that retreat was now impossible. The advance towards the north was less perilous than a return to the south; it was time to think of going into winter-quarters.

The sailors talked together about their condition, and one day they even began to talk with Shandon, who, they knew, was on their side. He so far forgot his duty as an officer as to allow them to discuss in his presence the authority of his captain.

“So you say, Mr. Shandon,” asked Gripper, “that we can't go back now?”

“No, it's too late,” answered Shandon.

“Then,” said another sailor, “we need only look forward to going into winter-quarters?”

“It's our only resource! No one would believe me—”

“The next time,” said Pen, who had returned to duty, “they will believe you.”

“Since I sha' n't be in command—” answered Shandon.

“Who can tell?” remarked Pen. “John Hatteras is free to go as far as he chooses, but no one is obliged to follow him.”

“Just remember,” resumed Gripper, “his first voyage to Baffin's Bay and what came of it?”

“And the voyage of the Farewell,” said Clifton, “which was lost in the Spitzenberg seas under his command.”

“And from which he came back alone,” added Gripper.

“Alone, but with his dog,” said Clifton.

“We don't care to sacrifice ourselves for the whims of that man,” continued Pen.

“Nor to lose all the wages we've earned so hard.”

They all recognized Clifton by those words.

“When we pass latitude 78°,” he added, “and we are not far from it, that will make just three hundred and seventy-five pounds for each man, six times eight degrees.”

“But,” asked Gripper, “sha' n't we lose them if we go back without the captain?”

“No,” answered Clifton, “if we can prove that it was absolutely necessary to return.”

“But the captain—still—”

“Don't be uneasy, Gripper,” answered Pen; “we shall have a captain, and a good one, whom Mr. Shandon knows. When a captain goes mad, he is dismissed and another appointed. Is n't that so, Mr. Shandon?”

“My friends,” answered Shandon, evasively, “you will always find me devoted to you. But let us wait and see what turns up.”

The storm, as may be seen, was gathering over Hatteras's head; but he pushed on boldly, firm, energetic, and confident. In fact, if he had not always managed the brig as he wanted to, and carried her where he was anxious to go, he had still been very successful; the distance passed over in five months was as great as what it had taken other explorers two or three years to make. Hatteras was now obliged to go into winter-quarters, but this would not alarm men of courage, experience, and confidence. Had not Sir John Ross and MacClure spent three successive winters in the arctic regions. Could not he do what they had done?

“Yes, of course,” Hatteras used to say, “and more too, if need be. Ah!” he said regretfully to the doctor, “why was I unable to get through Smith's Sound, at the north of Baffin's Bay? I should be at the Pole now!”

“Well,” the doctor used invariably to answer,—if necessary he could have invented confidence,—“we shall get there. Captain, but, it is true, at the ninety-ninth meridian instead of the seventy-fifth; but what difference does that make? If every road leads to Rome, it is even surer that every meridian leads to the Pole.”

August 31st, the thermometer fell to 13°. The end of the summer was evidently near; the Forward left Exmouth Island to starboard, and three days afterward she passed Table Island, lying in the middle of Belcher Channel. Earlier in the season it would have been possible to reach Baffin's Bay through this channel, but at this time it was impossible to think of it. This arm of the sea was completely filled with ice, and would not have offered a drop of open water to the prow of the Forward; for the next eight months their eyes would see nothing but boundless, motionless ice-fields.

Fortunately, they could still get a few minutes farther north, but only by breaking the new ice with huge beams, or by blowing it up with charges of powder. They especially had cause to fear calm weather while the temperature was so low, for the passes closed quickly, and they rejoiced even at contrary winds. A calm night, and everything was frozen!

Now the Forward could not winter where she was, exposed to the wind, icebergs, and the drift of the channel; a safe protection was the first thing to be found; Hatteras hoped to gain the coast of New Cornwall, and to find, beyond Point Albert, a bay sufficiently sheltered. Hence he persisted in crowding northward.

But, September 8, an impenetrable, continuous mass of ice lay between him and the north; the temperature fell to 10°. Hatteras, with an anxious heart, in vain sought for a passage, risking his ship a hundred times and escaping from his perils with wonderful skill. He might have been accused of imprudence, recklessness, folly, blindness, but he was one of the best of sailors.

The situation of the Forward became really dangerous; in fact, the sea was closing behind her, and in a few hours the ice grew so hard that men could run upon it and tow the brig in perfect safety.

Hatteras, not being able to get around this obstacle, determined to attack it boldly in front. He made use of his strongest blasting cylinders, containing eight or ten pounds of powder. The men would dig a hole in the broadest part of the ice, close the orifice with snow, after having placed the cylinder in a horizontal position, so that a greater extent of ice might be exposed to the explosion; then a fuse was lighted, which was protected by a gutta-percha tube.

In this way they tried to break the ice; it was impossible to saw it, for the fissures would close immediately. Still, Hatteras was hoping to get through the next day.

But during the night the wind blew a gale; the sea raised the crust of ice, and the terrified pilot was heard shouting,—

“Look out there aft, look out there aft!”

Hatteras turned his eyes in that direction, and what he saw in the dim light was indeed alarming.

A great mass of ice, drifting northward with the tide, was rushing towards the brig with the speed of an avalanche.

“All hands on deck!” shouted the captain.

This floating mountain was hardly half a mile away; the ice was all in confusion and crashing together like huge grains of sand before a violent tempest; the air was filled with a terrible noise.

“That, Doctor,” said Johnson, “is one of the greatest perils we have yet met with.”

“Yes,” answered the doctor, quietly; “it is terrible enough.”

“A real attack which we must repel,” resumed the boatswain.

“In fact, one might well think it was an immense crowd of antediluvian animals, such as might have lived near the Pole. How they hurry on, as if they were racing!”

“Besides,” added Johnson, “some carry sharp lances, of which you had better take care, Doctor.”

“It's a real siege,” shouted the doctor. “Well, let us run to the ramparts!”

He ran aft where the crew, provided with beams and bars, were standing ready to repel this formidable assault.

The avalanche came on, growing larger at every moment as it caught up the floating ice in its eddy; by Hatteras's orders the cannon was loaded with ball to break the threatening line. But it came on and ran towards the brig; a crash was heard, and as it came against the starboard-quarter, part of the rail had given way.

“Let no one stir!” shouted Hatteras. “Look out for the ice!”

They swarmed on board the ship with an irresistible force; lumps of ice, weighing many hundredweight, scaled the sides of the ship; the smallest, hurled as high as the yards, fell back in sharp arrows, breaking the shrouds and cutting the rigging. The men were overcome by numberless enemies, who were heavy enough to crush a hundred ships like the Forward. Every one tried to drive away these lumps, and more than one sailor was wounded by their sharp ends; among others, Bolton, who had his left shoulder badly torn. The noise increased immensely. Duke barked angrily at these new enemies. The darkness of the night added to the horrors of the situation, without hiding the ice which glowed in the last light of the evening.

Hatteras's orders sounded above all this strange, impossible, supernatural conflict of the men with the ice. The ship, yielding to this enormous pressure, inclined to larboard, and the end of the main-yard was already touching the ice, at the risk of breaking the mast.

Hatteras saw the danger; it was a terrible moment; the brig seemed about to be overturned, and the masts might be easily carried away.

A large block, as large as the ship, appeared to be passing along the keel; it arose with irresistible power; it came on past the quarter-deck; if it fell on the Forward, all was over; soon it rose even above the topmasts, and began to totter.

A cry of terror escaped from every one's lips. Every one ran back to starboard.

But at that moment the ship was relieved. They felt her lifted up, and for an instant she hung in the air, then she leaned over and fell back on the ice, and then she rolled so heavily that her planks cracked. What had happened?

Raised by this rising tide, driven by the ice which attacked her aft, she was getting across this impenetrable ice. After a minute of this strange sailing, which seemed as long as a century, she fell back on the other side of the obstacle on a field of ice; she broke it with her weight, and fell back into her natural element.

“We have got by the thick ice!” shouted Johnson, who had run forward.

“Thank God!” said Hatteras.

In fact, the brig lay in the centre of a basin of ice, which entirely surrounded her, and although her keel lay under water she could not stir; but if she were motionless, the field was drifting along.

“We are drifting, Captain!” shouted Johnson.

“All right,” answered Hatteras.

Indeed, how was it possible to resist it?

Day broke, and it was evident that under the influence of a submarine current the bank of ice was floating northward with great rapidity. This floating mass carried the Forward with it, in the midst of the ice-field, the edge of which could not be seen; to provide for any accident that might happen, Hatteras had a large supply of provisions carried on deck, as well as materials for camping, clothing, and cover; as MacClure had done under similar circumstances, he surrounded the ship with hammocks filled with air to protect her from damage. Soon it was so cold (7°), that the ship was surrounded by a wall from which only the masts issued.

For seven days they sailed iii this way; Point Albert, which forms the western extremity of New Cornwall, was seen September 10th, and soon disappeared; the ice-field was seen to be drifting eastward from that time. Where was it going? Where would it stop? Who could say?

The crew waited with folded arms. At last, September 15th, towards three o'clock in the afternoon, the ice-field, having probably run against another one, stopped suddenly; the ship was jarred violently; Hatteras, who had kept his reckoning all along, looked at his chart; he found himself in the north, with no land in sight, in longitude 95°35', and latitude 78°15' in the centre of the region of the unknown sea, which geographers have considered the place of greatest cold.