Part 26 (1/2)
THE RETURN--A BATTLE FOR LIFE AGAINST FAMINE AND FROST
TURNED BACKS TO THE POLE AND TO THE SUN--THE DOGS, SEEMINGLY GLAD AND SEEMINGLY SENSIBLE THAT THEIR NOSES WERE POINTED HOMEWARD, BARKED SHRILLY--SUFFERING FROM INTENSE DEPRESSION--THE DANGERS OF MOVING ICE, OF STORMS AND SLOW STARVATION--THE THOUGHT OF FIVE HUNDRED AND TWENTY MILES TO LAND CAUSES DESPAIR
XXI
SOUTHWARD OVER THE MID-POLAR SEA
With few glances backward, we continued the homeward run in haste, crossing many new creva.s.ses and bound on a course along the one hundredth meridian.
The eagerness to solve the mystery had served its purpose. The memory of the adventure for a time remained as a reminder of reckless daring. As we now moved along, there came more and more strongly the realization of the prospective difficulties of the return. Although the mercury was still frozen and the sun's perpetual flush was lost in a frigid blue, the time was at hand in lower lat.i.tudes for the ice to break and drift southward.
With correct reasoning, all former expeditions had planned to return to land and a secure line of retreat by May 1. We could not hope to do this until early in June. It seemed probable, therefore, that the ice along the outskirts of the Polar sea would be much disrupted and that open water, small ice and rapid drifts would seriously interfere with our return to a sure footing on the sh.o.r.es of Fridtjof Nansen Sound. This and many other possible dangers had been carefully considered before, but the conquest of the Pole was not possible without such risks.
We had started earlier than all other Polar expeditions and no time had been lost en route. If misfortune came to us, it could not be because of wasted energies or unnecessary delay. In the last days of the onward rush to success there had been neither time nor opportunity to ponder over future dangers, but now, facing the southern skies, under which lay home and all for which we lived, the back trail seemed indescribably long. In cold, sober thought, freed of the intoxication of Polar enthusiasm, the difficulties increasingly darkened in color. We clearly saw that the crucial stage of the campaign was not the taking of the Pole. The test of our fitness as boreal conquerors was to be measured by the outcome of a final battle for life against famine and frost.
Figuring out the difficulties and possibilities of our return, I came to the conclusion that to endeavor to get back by our upward trail would not afford great advantage. Much time would be lost seeking the trail.
The almost continuous low drift of snow during some part of nearly every day would obliterate our tracks and render the trail useless as a beaten track in making travel easier. The advantage of previously constructed snow houses as camps did not appeal to us.
After one is accustomed to a new, clean, bright dome of snow every night, as we were, the return to such a camp is gloomy and depressing.
The house is almost invariably left in such a shape that, for hygienic reasons alone, it should not be occupied. Furthermore, the influence of sun and storm absolutely destroys in a few days two out of three of all such shelter places. Moreover, we were now camping in our silk tent and did not require other shelter. At the season of the year in which we were traveling, the activity of the pack farther south made back-tracking impossible, because of irregular lateral drift of individual fields. And to me the most important reason was an eager desire to ascertain what might be discovered on a new trail farther west. It was this eagerness which led to our being carried adrift and held prisoners for a year.
The first days, however, pa.s.sed rapidly. The ice fields became smoother.
On April 24 we crossed five creva.s.ses. With fair weather and favorable ice, long marches were made. On the 24th we made sixteen miles, on the 25th fifteen miles, on the 26th, 27th and 28th, fourteen miles a day.
The fire of the homing sentiment began to dispel our overbearing fatigue. The dogs sniffed the air. The Eskimos sang songs of the chase.
To me also there came cheering thoughts of friends and loved ones to be greeted. I thought of delightful dinners, of soul-stirring music. For all of us, the good speed of the return chase brought a mental atmosphere of dreams of the pleasures of another world. For a time we were blinded to ultimate dangers, just as we had been in the northward dash.
In our return along the one hundredth meridian, there were three important objects to be gained by a route somewhat west of the northward march. The increasing easterly drift would thus be counterbalanced. We hoped to get near enough to the new lands to explore a part of the coast. And a wider belt would be swept out of the unknown area. On April 30 the pedometer registered one hundred and twenty-one miles, and by our system of dead reckoning, which was usually correct, we should have been at lat.i.tude 87, 59', longitude 100. The nautical observations gave lat.i.tude 88, 1', longitude 97, 42'. We were drifting eastward, therefore, with increasing speed. To counterbalance our being moved by this drift, we turned and bounded southward in a more westerly course.
The never-changing sameness of the daily routine was again felt. The novelty of success and the pa.s.sion of the run for the goal were no longer operative. The scenes of s.h.i.+vering blue wearied the eye, and there was no inspiration in the moving sea of ice to gladden the heart.
The thermometer rose and fell between 30 and 40 below zero, Fahrenheit, with a ceaseless wind. The first of May was at hand, bringing to mind the blossoms and smiles of a kindly world. But here all nature was narrowed to lines of ice.
May 1 came with increasing color in the sunbursts, but without cheer.
The splendor of terrestrial fire was a cheat. Over the horizon, mirages displayed celestial hysterics. The sun circled the skies in lines of glory, but its heat was a sham, its light a torment. The ice was heavy and smooth. On May 2, clouds obscured the sky, fog fell heavily over the ice, we struck our course with difficulty but made nineteen miles. On May 3 snow fell, but the end of the march brought clear skies, and, with them, the longing for my land of blossoming cherry and apple trees.
With weary nerves, and with compa.s.s in hand, my lonely march ahead of the sledges continued day by day. Progress was satisfactory. We had pa.s.sed the eighty-ninth and eighty-eighth parallels. The eighty-seventh and the eighty-sixth would soon be under foot, and the sight of the new lands should give encouragement. These hard-fought times were days long to be remembered. The lack of cerebral stimulation and nutrition left no cellular resource to aid the memory of those fateful hours of chill.
The long strain of the march had established a brotherly sympathy amongst the trio of human strugglers. The dogs, though still possessing the savage ferocity of the wolf, had taken us into their community. We now moved among them without hearing a grunt of discord, and their sympathetic eyes followed until we were made comfortable on the cheerless snows. If they happened to be placed near enough, they edged up and encircled us, giving the benefit of their animal heat. To remind us of their presence, frost-covered noses were frequently pushed under the sleeping bag, and occasionally a cold snout touched our warm skin with a rude awakening.
We loved the creatures, and admired their superb brute strength. Their superhuman adaptability was a frequent topic of conversation. With a pelt that was a guarantee against all weather condition, they threw themselves down to the sweep of winds, in open defiance of death-dealing storms. Eating but a pound of pemmican a day, and demanding neither water nor shelter, they willingly did a prodigious amount of work and then, as bed-fellows, daily offered their fur as shelter and their bones as head-rests to their two-footed companions. We had learned to appreciate the advantage of their beating b.r.e.a.s.t.s. The bond of animal fellows.h.i.+p had drawn tighter and tighter in a long run of successive adventures. And now there was a stronger reason than ever to appreciate power, for together we were seeking an escape from a world which was never intended for creatures with pulsating hearts.
Much very heavy ice was crossed near the eighty-eighth parallel, but the endless unbroken fields of the northward trails were not again seen. Now the weather changed considerably. The light, cutting winds from the west increased in force, and the spasmodic squalls came at shorter intervals.
The clear purples and blues of the skies gradually gave place to an ugly hue of gray. A rush of frosty needles came over the pack for several hours each day.
The inducement to seek shelter in cemented walls of snow and to wait for better weather was very great. But such delay would mean certain starvation. Under fair conditions, there was barely food enough to reach land, and even short delays might seriously jeopardize our return. We could not, therefore, do otherwise than force ourselves against the wind and drift with all possible speed, paying no heed to unavoidable suffering. As there was no alternative, we tried to persuade ourselves that existing conditions might be worse than they were.