Part 21 (1/2)
ONE HUNDRED MILES FROM THE POLE
We pushed onward. We cracked our whips to urge the tiring dogs. We forced to quick steps weary leg after weary leg. Mile after mile of ice rolled under our feet. The maddening influence of the s.h.i.+fting desert of frost became almost unendurable in the daily routine. Under the lash of duty interest was forced, while the merciless drive of extreme cold urged physical action. Our despair was mental and physical--the result of chronic overwork.
Externally there was reason for rejoicing. The sky had cleared, the weather improved, a liquid charm of color poured over the strange other-world into which we advanced. Progress was good, but the soul refused to open its eyes to beauty or color. All was a lifeless waste.
The mind, heretofore busy in directing arm and foot, to force a way through miniature mountains of uplifted floes, was now, because of better ice, relieved of that strain, but it refused to seek diversion.
The normal run of hards.h.i.+p, although eased, now piled up the acc.u.mulated poison of overwork, and when I now think of the terrible strain I fail to see how a workable balance was maintained.
As we pa.s.sed the eighty-sixth parallel, the ice increased in breadth and thickness. Great hummocks and pressure lines became less frequent. A steady progress was gained with the most economical human drain possible. The temperature ranged between 36 and 40 below zero, Fahrenheit, with higher and lower midday and midnight extremes. Only spirit thermometers were useful, for the mercury was at this degree of frost either frozen or sluggish.
Although the perpetual sun gave light and color to the cheerless waste we were not impressed with any appreciable sense of warmth. Indeed, the sunbeams by their contrast seemed to cause the frost of the air to pierce with a more painful sting. In marching over the golden glitter, snow scalded our faces, while our noses were bleached with frost. The sun rose into zones of fire and set in burning fields of ice, but, in pain, we breathed the chill of death.
In camp a grip of the knife left painful burns from cold metal. To the frozen fingers ice cold water was hot. With wine-spirits the fire was lighted, while oil delighted the stomach. In our dreams Heaven was hot, the other place was cold. All Nature was false; we seemed to be nearing the chilled flame of a new Hades.
We now changed our working hours from day to night, beginning usually at ten o'clock and ending at seven. The big marches and prolonged hours of travel with which fortune favored us earlier were no longer possible.
Weather conditions were more important in determining a day's run than the hands of the chronometers.
That I must steadily keep up my notes and the records of observations was a serious addition to my daily task. I never permitted myself to be careless in regard to this, for I never let myself forget the importance of such data in plotting an accurate course.
I kept my records in small notebooks, writing very fine with a hard pencil on both sides of the paper. At the beginning of the journey I had usually set down the day's record by candle light, but later, when the sun was s.h.i.+ning both day and night, I needed no light even inside the walls of the igloo, for the sunlight shone strongly enough through the walls of snow. s.h.i.+ning brilliantly at times, I utilized the opportunity it afforded, every few marches, to measure our shadows. The daily change marked our advance Poleward.
When storms threatened, our start was delayed. In strong gales the march was shortened. But in one way or another we usually found a few hours in each turn of the dial during which a march could be forced between winds. It mattered little whether we traveled night or day--all hours and all days were alike to us--for we had no accustomed time to rest, no Sundays, no holidays, no landmarks, or mile-posts to pa.s.s.
To advance and expend the energy acc.u.mulated during one sleep at the cost of one pound of pemmican was our sole aim in life. Day after day our legs were driven onward. Constantly new but similar panoramas rolled by us.
Our observations on April 11, gave lat.i.tude 87 20', longitude 95 19'. The pack disturbance of the new land was less and less noted as we progressed in the northward movement. The fields became heavier, larger and less creva.s.sed. Fewer troublesome old floes and less crushed new ice were encountered. With the improved conditions, the fire of a racing spirit surged up for a brief spell.
We had now pa.s.sed the highest reaches of all our predecessors. The inspiration of the Farthest North for a brief time thrilled me. The time was at hand, however, to consider seriously the possible necessity of an early return.
Nearly half of the food allowance had been used. In the long marches supplies had been more liberally consumed than antic.i.p.ated. Now our dog teams were much reduced in numbers. Because of the cruel law of the survival of the fittest, the less useful dogs had gone into the stomachs of their stronger companions. With the lessening of the number of dogs had come at the same time a reduction of the weight of the sledge loads, through the eating of the food. Now, owing to food limitations and the advancing season, we could not prudently continue the onward march a fortnight longer.
We had dragged ourselves three hundred miles over the Polar sea in twenty-four days. Including delays and detours, this gave an average of nearly thirteen miles daily on an airline in our course. There remained an unknown line of one hundred and sixty miles to the Pole. The same average advance would take us to the Pole in thirteen days. There were food and fuel enough to risk this adventure. With good luck the prize seemed within our grasp. But a prolonged storm, a deep snowfall, or an active ice-pack would mean failure.
In new cracks I measured the thickness of the ice. I examined the water for life. The technical details for the making and breaking of ice were studied, and some attention was given to the alt.i.tude of uplifted and submerged irregularities. Atmospheric, surface water and ice temperatures were taken, the barometer was noted, the cloud formations, weather conditions and ice drifts were tabulated. There was a continuous routine of work, but like the effort of the foot in the daily drive, it became more or less automatic.
Running along over seemingly endless fields of ice, the physical appearances now came under more careful scrutiny. I watched daily for possible signs of failing in the strength of any of us, because a serious disability would now mean a fatal termination. A disabled man could neither continue nor return. Each new examination gave me renewed confidence and was another reason to push human endurance to the limit of straining every fibre and cell.
As a matter of long experience I find life in this extreme North is healthful so long as there is sufficient good food, so long as exertion is not overdone. A weakling would easily be killed, but a strong man is splendidly hardened and kept in perfect physical trim by sledging and tramping in this germless air. But, as I have said, sufficient food and not too much exertion are requisites to full safety, and in our case we were working to the limit, with rations running low. Still, the men responded superbly.
Our tremendous exertion in forcing daily rus.h.i.+ng marches, under occasional bursts of burning sunbeams, provoked intense thirst.
Following the habit of the camel, we managed to take enough water before starting to keep sufficient liquid in the stomach and veins for the ensuing day's march. Yet it was painful to await the melting of ice at camping time.
In two sittings, evening and morning, each of us took an average of three quarts of water daily. This included tea and also the luxury of occasional soup. Water was about us everywhere in heaps, but before the thirst could be quenched, several ounces of precious fuel, which had been sledged for hundreds of miles, must be used. And yet, this water, so expensive and so necessary to us, became the cause of our greatest discomfort. It escaped through pores of the skin, saturated the boots, formed a band of ice under the knee and a belt of frost about the waist, while the face was nearly always encased in a mask of icicles from the moist breath. We learned to take this torture philosophically.
With our dogs bounding and tearing onward, from the eighty-seventh to the eighty-eighth parallel we pa.s.sed for two days over old ice without pressure lines or hummocks. There was no discernible line of demarcation to indicate separate fields, and it was quite impossible to determine whether we were on land or sea ice. The barometer indicated no perceptible elevation, but the ice had the hard, wavering surface of glacial ice, with only superficial creva.s.ses. The water obtained from this was not salty. All of the upper surface of old hummock and high ice of the Polar sea resolves into unsalted water. My nautical observations did not seem to indicate a drift, but nevertheless my combined tabulations do not warrant a positive a.s.sertion of either land or sea; I am inclined, however, to put this down as ice on low or submerged land.
The ice presented an increasingly cheering prospect. A plain of purple and blue ran in easy undulations to the limits of vision without the usual barriers of uplifted blocks. Over it a direct air-line course was possible. Progress, however, was quite as difficult as over the irregular pack. The snow was crusted with large crystals. An increased friction reduced the sled speed, while the snow surface, too hard for snowshoes, was also too weak to give a secure footing to the unprotected boot. The loneliness, the monotony, the hards.h.i.+p of steady, unrelieved travel were keenly felt.