Part 19 (2/2)
Not particularly anxious about the outcome of the storm, and with senses blunted by overwork and benumbed with cold, we sought the comfort of the bags. Awakened in the course of a few hours by drifts of snow about our feet, I noted that the wind had burrowed holes at weak spots through the snow wall. We were bound, however, not to be cheated of a few hours'
sleep, and with one eye open we turned over. I was awakened by falling snow blocks soon after.
Forcing my head out of my ice-encased fur hood, I saw the sky, cloud-swept and grey. The dome of the igloo had been swept away. We were being quickly buried under a dangerous weight of snow. In some way I had tossed about sufficiently during sleep to keep on top of the acc.u.mulating drift, but my companions were nowhere to be seen. About me for miles the white s.p.a.ces were vacant. With dread in my heart I uttered a loud call, but there came no response.
A short frenzied search revealed a blowhole in the snow. In response to another call, as from some subterranean place came m.u.f.fled Eskimo shouts. Tearing and burrowing at the fallen snow blocks I made violent efforts to free them, buried as they were in their bags. But to my dismay the soft snow settled on them tighter with each tussle.
I was surprised, a few moments later, as I was working to keep their breathing place open, to feel them burrowing through the snow. They had entered their bags without undressing. Half clothed in s.h.i.+rt and pants, but with bare feet, they writhed and wriggled through the bags and up through the breathing hole.
After a little digging their boots were uncovered, and then, with protected feet, the bag was freed and placed at the side of the igloo.
Into it the boys crept, fully dressed, with the exception of coats. I rolled out beside them in my bag. We lay in the open sweep of furious wind, impotent to move, for twenty-nine hours. Only then the frigid blast eased enough to enable us to creep out into the open. The air came in hissing spouts, like jets of steam from an engine.
Soon after noon of March 29 the air brightened. It became possible to breathe without being choked with floating crystals, and as the ice about our facial furs was broken, a little blue patch was detected in the west. We now freed the dogs of their snow entanglement and fed them.
A shelter was made in which to melt snow and brew tea. We ate a double ration.
Hitching the dogs we raced off. The monotonous fields of snow swept under us. Soon the sun burst through separating clouds and upraised icy spires before us. The wind died away. A crystal glory transfigured the storm-swept fields. We seemed traveling over fields of diamonds, scintillant as white fire, which s.h.i.+mmered dazzlingly about us. It is curious to observe an intense fiery glitter and glow, as in the North, which gives absolutely no impression of warmth. Fire here seems cold.
With full stomachs, fair weather and a much needed rest, we moved with renewed inspiration. The dogs ran with tails erect, ears p.r.i.c.ked. I and my companions ran behind with the joy of contestants in a race. Indeed, we felt refreshed as one does after a cold bath.
Considerable time and distance, however, were lost in seeking a workable line of travel about obstructions and making detours. Camping at midnight, we had made only nine miles by a day's effort. The conditions under which this second hundred miles were forced, proved to be in every respect the most exciting of the run of five hundred miles over the Polar sea. The mere human satisfaction of overcoming difficulties was a daily incentive to surmount obstacles and meet baffling problems. The weather was unsettled. Sudden storms broke with spasmodic force, the barometer was unsteady and the temperature ranged from 20 below zero to 60 below zero. The ice showed signs of recent agitation.
New leads and recent sheets of new ice combined with deep snow made travel difficult. Persistently onward, pausing at times, we would urge the dogs to the limit. One dog after another went into the stomachs of the hungry survivors. Camps were now swept by storms. The ice opened out under our bodies, shelter was often a mere hole in the snow bank. Each of us carried painful wounds, frost bites; and the ever chronic emptiness of half filled stomachs brought a gastric call for food, impossible to supply. Hard work and strong winds sent unquenched thirst tortures to burning throats, and the gloom of ever clouded skies sent despair to its lowest reaches.
But there was no monotony; our tortures came from different angles, and from so many sources, that we were ever aroused to a fighting spirit.
With a push at the sled or a pull at the line we helped the wind-teased dogs to face the nose cutting drift that swept the pack mile after mile.
Day after day we plunged farther and farther along into the icy despair and stormy bl.u.s.ter.
Throughout the entire advance northward I found there was some advantage in my Eskimo companions having some slight comprehension of the meaning of my aim. Doubtless through information and ideas that had sifted from explorers to Eskimos for many generations past, the aborigines had come to understand that there is a point at the top of the globe, which is somehow the very top of the world, and that at this summit there is something which white men have long been anxious to find--a something which the Eskimo describe as the ”big nail.” The feeling that they were setting out with me in the hope of being the first to find this ”big nail”--for, of course, I had told them of the possibility--helped to keep up the interest and courage of my two companions during long days of hards.h.i.+p.
Naturally enough, I could not expect their interest in the Pole itself to be great. Their promised reward for accompanying me, a gun and knife for each, maintained a lively interest in them. After a ceaseless warfare lasting seven days, on March 30 the eastern sky broke in lines of cheering blue. Whipped by low winds the clouds broke and scurried.
Soon the western heavens, ever a blank mystery, cleared. Under it, to my surprise, lay a new land. I think I felt a thrill such as Columbus must have felt when the first green vision of America loomed before his eye.
My promise to the good, trusty boys of nearness to land was unwittingly on my part made good, and the delight of eyes opened to the earth's northernmost rocks dispelled all the physical torture of the long run of storms. As well as I could see, the land seemed an interrupted coast extending parallel to the line of march for about fifty miles, far to the west. It was snow covered, ice-sheeted and desolate. But it was real land with all the sense of security solid earth can offer. To us that meant much, for we had been adrift in a moving sea of ice, at the mercy of tormenting winds. Now came, of course, the immediate impelling desire to set foot upon it, but to do so I knew would have side-tracked us from our direct journey to the Polar goal. In any case, delay was jeopardous, and, moreover, our food supply did not permit our taking time to inspect the new land.[13]
This new land was never clearly seen. A low mist, seemingly from open water, hid the sh.o.r.e line. We saw the upper slopes only occasionally from our point of observation. There were two distinct land ma.s.ses. The most southern cape of the southern ma.s.s bore west by south, but still further to the south there were vague indications of land. The most northern cape of the same ma.s.s bore west by north. Above it there was a distinct break for 15 or 20 miles, and beyond the northern ma.s.s extended above the eighty-fifth parallel to the northwest. The entire coast was at this time placed on our charts as having a sh.o.r.e line along the one hundred and second meridian, approximately parallel to our line of travel. At the time the indications suggested two distinct islands.
Nevertheless, we saw so little of the land that we could not determine whether it consisted of islands or of a larger mainland. The lower coast resembled Heiberg Island, with mountains and high valleys. The upper coast I estimated as being about one thousand feet high, flat, and covered with a thin sheet ice. Over the land I write ”Bradley Land” in honor of John R. Bradley, whose generous help had made possible the important first stage of the expedition. The discovery of this land gave an electric impetus of driving vigor at just the right moment to counterbalance the effect of the preceding week of storm and trouble.
Although I gazed longingly and curiously at the land, to me the Pole was the pivot of ambition. My boys had not the same northward craze, but I told them to reach the land on our return might be possible. We never saw it again. This new land made a convenient mile-post, for from this time on the days were counted to and from it. A good noon sight fixed the point of observation to 84 50', longitude 95 36''. We had forced beyond the second hundred miles from Svartevoeg. Before us remained about three hundred more miles, to my alluring, mysterious goal.
[Ill.u.s.tration: ARCTIC FOX]
BEYOND THE RANGE OF LIFE
WITH A NEW SPRING TO WEARY LEGS BRADLEY LAND IS LEFT BEHIND--FEELING THE ACHING VASTNESS OF THE WORLD BEFORE MAN WAS MADE--CURIOUS GRIMACES OF THE MIDNIGHT SUN--SUFFERINGS INCREASE--BY PERSISTENT AND LABORIOUS PROGRESS ANOTHER HUNDRED MILES IS COVERED
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