by Frank Norris
“We’ll have easier hauling this afternoon, men,” said Bennett; “this next ridge is the worst of the lot; beyond that Mr. Ferriss says we’ve got nearly a quarter of a mile of level floes.”
On again at one o’clock; but the hummock of which Bennett had spoken proved absolutely impassable for the loaded sledges. It was all one that the men lay to the ropes like draught-horses, and that Muck Tu flogged the dogs till the goad broke in his hands. The men lost their footing upon the slippery ice and fell to their knees; the dogs laid down in the traces groaning and whining. The sledge would not move.
“Unload!” commanded Bennett.
The lashings were taken off, and the loads, including the great, cumbersome whaleboat itself, carried over the hummock by hand. Then the sledge itself was hauled over and reloaded upon the other side. Thus the whole five sledges.
The work was bitter hard; the knots of the lashings were frozen tight and coated with ice; the cases of provisions, the medicine chests, the canvas bundle of sails, boat-covers, and tents unwieldy and of enormous weight; the footing on the slippery, uneven ice precarious, and more than once a man, staggering under his load, broke through the crust into water so cold that the sensation was like that of burning.
But at last everything was over, the sledges reloaded, and the forward movement resumed. Only one low hummock now intervened between them and the longed-for level floe.
However, as they were about to start forward again a lamentable gigantic sound began vibrating in their ears, a rumbling, groaning note rising by quick degrees to a strident shriek. Other sounds, hollow and shrill — treble mingling with diapason — joined in the first. The noise came from just beyond the pressure-mound at the foot of which the party had halted.
“Forward!” shouted Bennett; “hurry there, men!”
Desperately eager, the men bent panting to their work. The sledge bearing the whaleboat topped the hummock.
“Now, then, over with her!” cried Ferriss.
But it was too late. As they stood looking down upon it for an instant, the level floe, their one sustaining hope during all the day, suddenly cracked from side to side with the noise of ordnance. Then the groaning and shrieking recommenced. The crack immediately closed up, the pressure on the sides of the floe began again, and on the smooth surface of the ice, domes and mounds abruptly reared themselves. As the pressure increased these domes and mounds cracked and burst into countless blocks and slabs. Ridge after ridge was formed in the twinkling of an eye. Thundering like a cannonade of siege guns, the whole floe burst up, jagged, splintered, hummocky. In less than three minutes, and while the Freja’s men stood watching, the level stretch toward which since morning they had struggled with incalculable toil was ground up into a vast mass of confused and pathless rubble.
“Oh, this will never do,” muttered Ferriss, disheartened.
“Come on, men!” exclaimed Bennett. “Mr. Ferriss, go forward, and choose a road for us.”
The labour of the morning was recommenced. With infinite patience, infinite hardship, the sledges one by one were advanced. So heavy were the three larger McClintocks that only one could be handled at a time, and that one taxed the combined efforts of men and dogs to the uttermost. The same ground had to be covered seven times. For every yard gained seven had to be travelled. It was not a march, it was a battle; a battle without rest and without end and without mercy; a battle with an Enemy whose power was beyond all estimate and whose movements were not reducible to any known law. A certain course would be mapped, certain plans formed, a certain objective determined, and before the course could be finished, the plans executed, or the objective point attained the perverse, inexplicable movement of the ice baffled their determination and set at naught their best ingenuity.
At four o’clock it began to snow. Since the middle of the forenoon the horizon had been obscured by clouds and mist so that no observation for position could be taken. Steadily the clouds had advanced, and by four o’clock the expedition found itself enveloped by wind and driving snow. The flags could no longer be distinguished; thin and treacherous ice was concealed under drifts; the dogs floundered helplessly; the men could scarcely open their eyes against the wind and fine, powder-like snow, and at times when they came to drag forward the last sledge they found it so nearly buried in the snow that it must be dug out before it could be moved.
Toward half past five the odometer on one of the dog-sleds registered a distance of three-quarters of a mile made since morning. Bennett called a halt, and camp was pitched in the lee of one of the larger hummocks. The alcohol cooker was set going, and supper was had under the tent, the men eating as they lay in their sleeping-bags. But even while eating they fell asleep, drooping lower and lower, finally collapsing upon the canvas floor of the tent, the food still in their mouths.
Yet, for all that, the night was miserable. Even after that day of superhuman struggle they were not to be allowed a few hours of unbroken rest. By midnight the wind had veered to the east and was blowing a gale. An hour later the tent came down. Exhausted as they were, they must turn out and wrestle with that slatting, ice-sheathed canvas, and it was not until half an hour later that everything was fast again.
Once more they crawled into the sleeping-bags, but soon the heat from their bodies melted the ice upon their clothes, and pools of water formed under each man, wetting him to the skin. Sleep was impossible. It grew colder and colder as the night advanced, and the gale increased. At three o’clock in the morning the centigrade thermometer was at eighteen degrees below. The cooker was lighted again, and until six o’clock the party huddled wretchedly about it, dozing and waking, shivering continually.
Breakfast at half past six o’clock; under way again an hour later. There was no change in the nature of the ice. Ridge succeeded ridge, hummock followed upon hummock. The wind was going down, but the snow still fell as fine and bewildering as ever. The cold was intense. Dennison, the doctor and naturalist of the expedition, having slipped his mitten, had his hand frostbitten before he could recover it. Two of the dogs, Big Joe and Stryelka, were noticeably giving out.
But Bennett, his huge jaws clenched, his small, distorted eyes twinkling viciously through the apertures of the wind-mask, his harsh, black eyebrows lowering under the narrow, contracted forehead, drove the expedition to its work relentlessly. Not Muck Tu, the dog-master, had his Ostiaks more completely under his control than he his men. He himself did the work of three. On that vast frame of bone and muscle, fatigue seemed to leave no trace. Upon that inexorable bestial determination difficulties beyond belief left no mark. Not one of the twelve men under his command fighting the stubborn ice with tooth and nail who was not galvanised with his tremendous energy. It was as though a spur was in their flanks, a lash upon their backs. Their minds, their wills, their efforts, their physical strength to the last ounce and pennyweight belonged indissolubly to him. For the time being they were his slaves, his serfs, his beasts of burden, his draught animals, no better than the dogs straining in the traces beside them. Forward they must and would go until they dropped in the harness or he gave the word to pause.
At four o’clock in the afternoon Bennett halted. Two miles had been made since the last camp, and now human endurance could go no farther. Sometimes when the men fell they were unable to get up. It was evident there was no more in them that day.
In his ice-journal for that date Bennett wrote:
... Two miles covered by 4 p.m. Our course continues to be south, 20 degrees west (magnetic). The ice still hummocky. At this rate we shall be on half rations long before we reach Wrangel Island. No observation possible since day before yesterday on account of snow and clouds. Stryelka, one of our best dogs, gave out to-day. Shot him and fed him to the others. Our advance to the southwest is slow but sure, and every day brings nearer our objective. Temperature at 6 p.m., 6.8 degrees Fahr. (minus 14 degrees C). Wind, east; force, 2.
The next morning was clear for two hours after breakfast, and when Ferriss retu
rned from his task of path-finding he reported to Bennett that he had seen a great many water-blinks off to the southwest.
“The wind of yesterday has broken the ice up,” observed Bennett; “we shall have hard work to-day.”
A little after midday, at a time when they had wrested some thousand yards to the southward from the grip of the ice, the expedition came to the first lane of open water, about three hundred feet in width. Bennett halted the sledges and at once set about constructing a bridge of floating cakes of ice. But the work of keeping these ice-blocks in place long enough for the transfer of even a single sledge seemed at times to be beyond their most strenuous endeavour. The first sledge with the cutter crossed in safety. Then came the turn of number two, loaded with the provisions and whaleboat. It was two-thirds of the way across when the opposite side of the floe abruptly shifted its position, and thirty feet of open water suddenly widened out directly in front of the line of progress.
“Cut loose!” commanded Bennett upon the instant. The ice-block upon which they were gathered was set free in the current. The situation was one of the greatest peril. The entire expedition, men and dogs together, with their most important sledge, was adrift. But the oars and mast and the pole of the tent were had from the whaleboat, and little by little they ferried themselves across. The gap was bridged again and the dog-sleds transferred.
But now occurred the first real disaster since the destruction of the ship. Half-way across the crazy pontoon bridge of ice, the dogs, harnessed to one of the small sleds, became suddenly terrified. Before any one could interfere they had bolted from Muck Tu’s control in a wild break for the farther side of the ice. The sled was overturned; pell-mell the dogs threw themselves into the water; the sled sank, the load-lashing parted, and two medicine chests, the bag of sewing materials — of priceless worth — a coil of wire ropes, and three hundred and fifty pounds of pemmican were lost in the twinkling of an eye.
Without comment Bennett at once addressed himself to making the best of the business. The dogs were hauled upon the ice; the few loads that yet remained upon the sled were transferred to another; that sled was abandoned, and once more the expedition began its never-ending battle to the southward.
The lanes of open water, as foreshadowed by the water-blinks that Ferriss had noted in the morning, were frequent; alternating steadily with hummocks and pressure-ridges. But the perversity of the ice was all but heart-breaking. At every hour the lanes opened and closed. At one time in the afternoon they had arrived upon the edge of a lane wide enough to justify them in taking to their boats. The sledges were unloaded, and stowed upon the boats themselves, and oars and sails made ready. Then as Bennett was about to launch the lane suddenly closed up. What had been water became a level floe, and again the process of unloading and reloading had to be undertaken.
That evening Big Joe and two other dogs, Gavriga and Patsy, were shot because of their uselessness in the traces. Their bodies were cut up to feed their mates.
“I can spare the dogs,” wrote Bennett in his journal for that day — a Sunday— “but McPherson, one of the best men of the command, gives me some uneasiness. His frozen footnips have chafed sores in his ankle. One of these has ulcerated, and the doctor tells me is in a serious condition. His pain is so great that he can no longer haul with the others. Shall relieve him from work during the morrow’s march. Less than a mile covered to-day. Meridian observation for latitude impossible on account of fog. Divine services at 5:30 p.m.”
A week passed, then another. There was no change, neither in the character of the ice nor in the expedition’s daily routine. Their toil was incredible; at times an hour’s unremitting struggle would gain but a few yards. The dogs, instead of aiding them, were rapidly becoming mere encumbrances. Four more had been killed, a fifth had been drowned, and two, wandering from camp, had never returned. The second dog-sled had been abandoned. The condition of McPherson’s foot was such that no work could be demanded from him. Hawes, the carpenter, was down with fever and kept everybody awake all night by talking in his sleep. Worse than all, however, Ferriss’s right hand was again frostbitten, and this time Dennison, the doctor, was obliged to amputate it above the wrist.
“... But I am no whit disheartened,” wrote Bennett. “Succeed I must and shall.”
A few days after the operation on Ferriss’s hand Bennett decided it would be advisable to allow the party a full twenty-four hours’ rest. The march of the day before had been harder than any they had yet experienced, and, in addition to McPherson and the carpenter, the doctor himself was upon the sick list.
In the evening Bennett and Ferriss took a long walk or rather climb over the ice to the southwest, picking out a course for the next day’s march.
A great friendship, not to say affection, had sprung up between these two men, a result of their long and close intimacy on board the Freja and of the hardships and perils they had shared during the past few weeks while leading the expedition in the retreat to the southward. When they had decided upon the track of the morrow’s advance they sat down for a moment upon the crest of a hummock to breathe themselves, their elbows on their knees, looking off to the south over the desolation of broken ice.
With his one good hand Ferriss drew a pipe and a handful of tea leaves wrapped in oiled paper from the breast of his deer-skin parkie.
“Do you mind filling this pipe for me, Ward?” he asked of Bennett.
Bennett glanced at the tea leaves and handed them back to Ferriss, and in answer to his remonstrance produced a pouch of his own.
“Tobacco!” cried Ferriss, astonished; “why, I thought we smoked our last aboard ship.”
“No, I saved a little of mine.”
“Oh, well,” answered Ferriss, trying to interfere with Bennett, who was filling his pipe, “I don’t want your tobacco; this tea does very well.”
“I tell you I have eight-tenths of a kilo left,” lied Bennett, lighting the pipe and handing it back to him. “Whenever you want a smoke you can set to me.”
Bennett lit a pipe of his own, and the two began to smoke.
“‘M, ah!” murmured Ferriss, drawing upon the pipe ecstatically, “I thought I never was going to taste good weed again till we should get home.”
Bennett said nothing. There was a long silence. Home! what did not that word mean for them? To leave all this hideous, grisly waste of ice behind, to have done with fighting, to rest, to forget responsibility, to have no more anxiety, to be warm once more — warm and well fed and dry — to see a tree again, to rub elbows with one’s fellows, to know the meaning of warm handclasps and the faces of one’s friends.
“Dick,” began Bennett abruptly after a long while, “if we get stuck here in this damned ice I’m going to send you and probably Metz on ahead for help. We’ll make a two-man kyack for you to use when you reach the limit of the pack, but besides the kyack you’ll carry nothing but your provisions, sleeping-bags, and rifle, and travel as fast as you can.” Bennett paused for a moment, then in a different voice continued: “I wrote a letter last night that I was going to give you in case I should have to send you on such a journey, but I think I might as well give it to you now.”
He drew from his pocket an envelope carefully wrapped in oilskin.
“If anything should happen to the expedition — to me — I want you to see that this letter is delivered.”
He paused again.
“You see, Dick, it’s like this; there’s a girl—” his face flamed suddenly, “no — no, a woman, a grand, noble, man’s woman, back in God’s country who is a great deal to me — everything in fact. She don’t know, hasn’t a guess, that I care. I never spoke to her about it. But if anything should turn up I should want her to know how it had been with me, how much she was to me. So I’ve written her. You’ll see that she gets it, will you?”
He handed the little package to Ferriss, and continued indifferently, and resuming his accustomed manner:
“If we get as far as Wrangel Island you
can give it back to me. We are bound to meet the relief ships or the steam whalers in that latitude. Oh, you can look at the address,” added Bennett as Ferriss, turning the envelope bottom side up, was thrusting it into his breast pocket; “you know her even better than I do. It’s Lloyd Searight.”
Ferriss’s teeth shut suddenly upon his pipestem.
Bennett rose. “Tell Muck Tu,” he said, “in case I don’t think of it again, that the dogs must be fed from now on from those that die. I shall want the dog biscuit and dried fish for our own use.”
“I suppose it will come to that,” answered Ferriss.
“Come to that!” returned Bennett grimly; “I hope the dogs themselves will live long enough for us to eat them. And don’t misunderstand,” he added; “I talk about our getting stuck in the ice, about my not pulling through; it’s only because one must foresee everything, be prepared for everything. Remember — I — shall — pull — through.”
But that night, long after the rest were sleeping, Ferriss, who had not closed his eyes, bestirred himself, and, as quietly as possible, crawled from his sleeping-bag. He fancied there was some slight change in the atmosphere, and wanted to read the barometer affixed to a stake just outside the tent. Yet when he had noted that it was, after all, stationary, he stood for a moment looking out across the ice with unseeing eyes. Then from a pocket in his furs he drew a little folder of morocco. It was pitiably worn, stained with sea-water, patched and repatched, its frayed edges sewed together again with ravellings of cloth and sea-grasses. Loosening with his teeth the thong of walrus-hide with which it was tied, Ferriss opened it and held it to the faint light of an aurora just paling in the northern sky.
“So,” he muttered after a while, “so — Bennett, too—”
For a long time Ferriss stood looking at Lloyd’s picture till the purple streamers in the north faded into the cold gray of the heavens. Then he shot a glance above him.