by Frank Norris
“Ward, listen! ‘The Pole at Last. A Norwegian Expedition Solves the Mystery of the Arctic. The Goal Reached After—’”
“What!” cried Bennett sharply, his frown lowering.
“‘ — After Centuries of Failure.’” Lloyd put down the paper with a note of laughter.
“Suppose you should read it some day.”
Bennett subsided with a good-humoured growl.
“You did scare me for a moment. I thought — I thought—”
“I did scare you? Why were you scared? What did you think?” She leaned toward him eagerly.
“I thought — well — oh — that some other chap, Duane, perhaps—”
“He’s still at Tasiusak. But he will succeed, I do believe. I’ve read a great deal about him. He has energy and determination. If anybody succeeds it will be Duane.”
“He? Never!”
“Somebody, then.”
“You said once that if your husband couldn’t nobody could.”
“Yes, yes, I know,” she answered cheerfully. “But you — you are out of it now.”
“Huh!” he grumbled. “It’s not because I don’t think I could if I wanted to.”
“No, you could not, Ward. Nobody can.”
“But you just said you thought somebody would some day.”
“Did I? Oh, suppose you really should one of these days!”
“And suppose I never came back?”
“Nonsense! Of course you would come back. They all do nowadays.”
“De Long didn’t.”
“But you are not De Long.”
And for the rest of the day Lloyd noted with a sinking heart that Bennett was unusually thoughtful and preoccupied. She said nothing, and was studious to avoid breaking in upon his reflections, whatever they might be. She kept out of his way as much as possible, but left upon his desk, as if by accident, a copy of a pamphlet issued by a geographical society, open at an article upon the future of exploration within the arctic circle. At supper that night Bennett suddenly broke in upon a rather prolonged silence with:
“It’s all in the ship. Build a ship strong enough to withstand lateral pressure of the ice and the whole thing becomes easy.”
Lloyd yawned and stirred her tea indifferently as she answered:
“Yes, but you know that can’t be done.”
Bennett frowned thoughtfully, drumming upon the table.
“I’ll wager I could build one.”
“But it’s not the ship alone. It’s the man. Whom would you get to command your ship?”
Bennett stared.
“Why, I would take her, of course.”
“You? You have had your share — your chance. Now you can afford to stay home and finish your book — and — well, you might deliver lectures.”
“What rot, Lloyd! Can you see me posing on a lecture platform?”
“I would rather see you doing that than trying to beat Duane, than getting into the ice again. I would rather see you doing that than to know that you were away up there — in the north, in the ice, at your work again, fighting your way toward the Pole, leading your men and overcoming every obstacle that stood in your way, never giving up, never losing heart, trying to do the great, splendid, impossible thing; risking your life to reach merely a point on a chart. Yes, I would rather see you on a lecture platform than on the deck of an arctic steamship. You know that, Ward.”
He shot a glance at her.
“I would like to know what you mean,” he muttered.
The winter went by, then the spring, and by June all the country around Medford was royal with summer. During the last days of May, Bennett practically had completed the body of his book and now occupied himself with its appendix. There was little variation in their daily life. Adler became more and more of a fixture about the place. In the first week of June, Lloyd and Bennett had a visitor, a guest; this was Hattie Campbell. Mr. Campbell was away upon a business trip, and Lloyd had arranged to have the little girl spend the fortnight of his absence with her at Medford.
The summer was delightful. A vast, pervading warmth lay close over all the world. The trees, the orchards, the rose-bushes in the garden about the house, all the teeming life of trees and plants hung motionless and poised in the still, tideless ocean of the air. It was very quiet; all distant noises, the crowing of cocks, the persistent calling of robins and jays, the sound of wheels upon the road, the rumble of the trains passing the station down in the town, seemed muffled and subdued. The long, calm summer days succeeded one another in an unbroken, glimmering procession. From dawn to twilight one heard the faint, innumerable murmurs of the summer, the dull bourdon of bees in the rose and lilac bushes, the prolonged, strident buzzing of blue-bottle-flies, the harsh, dry scrape of grasshoppers, the stridulating of an occasional cricket. In the twilight and all through the night itself the frogs shrilled from the hedgerows and in the damp, north corners of the fields, while from the direction of the hills toward the east the whippoorwills called incessantly. During the day the air was full of odours, distilled as it were by the heat of high noon — the sweet smell of ripening apples, the fragrance of warm sap and leaves and growing grass, the smell of cows from the nearby pastures, the pungent, ammoniacal suggestion of the stable back of the house, and the odour of scorching paint blistering on the southern walls.
July was very hot. No breath of wind stirred the vast, invisible sea of air, quivering and oily under the vertical sun. The landscape was deserted of animated life; there was little stirring abroad. In the house one kept within the cool, darkened rooms with matting on the floors and comfortable, deep wicker chairs, the windows wide to the least stirring of the breeze. Adler dozed in his canvas hammock slung between a hitching-post and a crab-apple tree in the shade behind the stable. Kamiska sprawled at full length underneath the water-trough, her tongue lolling, panting incessantly. An immeasurable Sunday stillness seemed to hang suspended in the atmosphere — a drowsy, numbing hush. There was no thought of the passing of time. The day of the week was always a matter of conjecture. It seemed as though this life of heat and quiet and unbroken silence was to last forever.
Then suddenly there was an alerte. One morning, a day or so after Hattie Campbell had returned to the City, just as Lloyd and Bennett were finishing their breakfast in the now heavily awninged glass-room, they were surprised to see Adler running down the road toward the house, Kamiska racing on ahead, barking excitedly. Adler had gone into the town for the mail and morning’s paper. This latter he held wide open in his hand, and as soon as he caught sight of Lloyd and Bennett waved it about him, shouting as he ran.
Lloyd’s heart began to beat. There was only one thing that could excite Adler to this degree — the English expedition; Adler had news of it; it was in the paper. Duane had succeeded; had been working steadily northward during all these past months, while Bennett —
“Stuck in the ice! stuck in the ice!” shouted Adler as he swung wide the front gate and came hastening toward the veranda across the lawn. “What did we say! Hooray! He’s stuck. I knew it; any galoot might ‘a’ known it. Duane’s stuck tighter’n a wedge off Bache Island, in Kane Basin. Here it all is; read it for yourself.”
Bennett took the paper from him and read aloud to the effect that the Curlew, accompanied by her collier, which was to follow her to the southerly limit of Kane Basin, had attempted the passage of Smith Sound late in June. But the season, as had been feared, was late. The enormous quantities of ice reported by the whalers the previous year had not debouched from the narrow channel, and on the last day of June the Curlew had found her further progress effectually blocked. In essaying to force her way into a lead the ice had closed in behind her, and, while not as yet nipped, the vessel was immobilised. There was no hope that she would advance northward until the following summer. The collier, which had not been beset, had returned to Tasiusak with the news of the failure.
“What a galoot! What a — a professor!” exclaimed Adler with a vast disdain. “Hi
m loafing at Tasiusak waiting for open water, when the Alert wintered in eighty-two-twenty-four! Well, he’s shelved for another year, anyhow.”
Later on, after breakfast, Lloyd and Bennett shut themselves in Bennett’s workroom, and for upward of three hours addressed themselves to the unfinished work of the previous day, compiling from Bennett’s notes a table of temperatures of the sea-water taken at different soundings. Alternating with the scratching of Lloyd’s pen, Bennett’s voice continued monotonously:
August 15th — 2,000 meters or 1,093 fathoms — minus .66 degrees centigrade or 30.81 Fahrenheit.
“Fahrenheit,” repeated Lloyd as she wrote the last word.
August 16th — 1,600 meters or 874 fathoms —
“Eight hundred and seventy-four fathoms,” repeated Lloyd as Bennett paused abstractedly.
“Or ... he’s in a bad way, you know.”
“What do you mean?”
“It’s a bad bit of navigation along there. The Proteus was nipped and crushed to kindling in about that same latitude ... h’m” ... Bennett tugged at his mustache. Then, suddenly, as if coming to himself: “Well — these temperatures now. Where were we? ‘Eight hundred and seventy-four fathoms, minus forty-six hundredths degrees centigrade.’”
On the afternoon of the next day, just as they were finishing this table, there was a knock at the door. It was Adler, and as Bennett opened the door he saluted and handed him three calling-cards. Bennett uttered an exclamation of surprise, and Lloyd turned about from the desk, her pen poised in the air over the half-written sheet.
“They might have let me know they were coming,” she heard Bennett mutter. “What do they want?”
“Guess they came on that noon train, sir,” hazarded Adler. “They didn’t say what they wanted, just inquired for you.”
“Who is it?” asked Lloyd, coming forward.
Bennett read off the names on the cards.
“Well, it’s Tremlidge — that’s the Tremlidge of the Times; he’s the editor and proprietor — and Hamilton Garlock — has something to do with that new geographical society — president, I believe — and this one” — he handed her the third card— “is a friend of yours, Craig V. Campbell, of the Hercules Wrought Steel Company.”
Lloyd stared. “What can they want?” she murmured, looking up to him from the card in some perplexity. Bennett shook his head.
“Tell them to come up here,” he said to Adler.
Lloyd hastily drew down her sleeve over her bare arm.
“Why up here, Ward?” she inquired abruptly.
“Should we have seen them downstairs?” he demanded with a frown. “I suppose so; I didn’t think. Don’t go,” he added, putting a hand on her arm as she started for the door. “You might as well hear what they have to say.”
The visitors entered, Adler holding open the door — Campbell, well groomed, clean-shaven, and gloved even in that warm weather; Tremlidge, the editor of one of the greater daily papers of the City (and of the country for the matter of that), who wore a monocle and carried a straw hat under his arm; and Garlock, the vice-president of an international geographical society, an old man, with beautiful white hair curling about his ears, a great bow of black silk knotted about his old-fashioned collar. The group presented, all unconsciously, three great and highly developed phases of nineteenth-century intelligence — science, manufactures, and journalism — each man of them a master in his calling.
When the introductions and preliminaries were over, Bennett took up his position again in front of the fireplace, leaning against the mantle, his hands in his pockets. Lloyd sat opposite to him at the desk, resting her elbow on the edge. Hanging against the wall behind her was the vast chart of the arctic circle. Tremlidge, the editor, sat on the bamboo sofa near the end of the room, his elbows on his knees, gently tapping the floor with the ferrule of his slim walking-stick; Garlock, the scientist, had dropped into the depths of a huge leather chair and leaned back in it comfortably, his legs crossed, one boot swinging gently; Campbell stood behind this chair, drumming on the back occasionally with the fingers of one hand, speaking to Bennett over Garlock’s shoulder, and from time to time turning to Tremlidge for corroboration and support of what he was saying.
Abruptly the conference began.
“Well, Mr. Bennett, you got our wire?” Campbell said by way of commencement.
Bennett shook his head.
“No,” he returned in some surprise; “no, I got no wire.”
“That’s strange,” said Tremlidge. “I wired three days ago asking for this interview. The address was right, I think. I wired: ‘Care of Dr. Pitts.’ Isn’t that right?”
“That probably accounts for it,” answered Bennett. “This is Pitts’s house, but he does not live here now. Your despatch, no doubt, went to his office in the City, and was forwarded to him. He’s away just now, travelling, I believe. But — you’re here. That’s the essential.”
“Yes,” murmured Garlock, looking to Campbell. “We’re here, and we want to have a talk with you.”
Campbell, who had evidently been chosen spokesman, cleared his throat.
“Well, Mr. Bennett, I don’t know just how to begin, so suppose I begin at the beginning. Tremlidge and I belong to the same club in the City, and in some way or other we have managed to see a good deal of each other during the last half-dozen years. We find that we have a good deal in common. I don’t think his editorial columns are for sale, and he doesn’t believe there are blow-holes in my steel plates. I really do believe we have certain convictions. Tremlidge seems to have an idea that journalism can be clean and yet enterprising, and tries to run his sheet accordingly, and I am afraid that I would not make a bid for bridge girders below what it would cost to manufacture them honestly. Tremlidge and I differ in politics; we hold conflicting views as to municipal government; we attend different churches; we are at variance in the matter of public education, of the tariff, of emigration, and, heaven save the mark! of capital and labour, but we tell ourselves that we are public-spirited and are a little proud that God allowed us to be born in the United States; also it appears that we have more money than Henry George believes to be right. Now,” continued Mr. Campbell, straightening himself as though he were about to touch upon the real subject of his talk, “when the news of your return, Mr. Bennett, was received, it was, as of course you understand, the one topic of conversation in the streets, the clubs, the newspaper offices — everywhere. Tremlidge and I met at our club at luncheon the next week, and I remember perfectly well how long and how very earnestly we talked of your work and of arctic exploration in general.
“We found out all of a sudden that here at last was a subject we were agreed upon, a subject in which we took an extraordinary mutual interest. We discovered that we had read almost every explorer’s book from Sir John Franklin down. We knew all about the different theories and plans of reaching the Pole. We knew how and why they had all failed; but, for all that, we were both of the opinion” (Campbell leaned forward, speaking with considerable energy) “that it can be done, and that America ought to do it. That would be something better than even a World’s Fair.
“We give out a good deal of money, Tremlidge and I, every year to public works and one thing or another. We buy pictures by American artists — pictures that we don’t want; we found a scholarship now and then; we contribute money to build groups of statuary in the park; we give checks to the finance committees of libraries and museums and all the rest of it, but, for the lives of us, we can feel only a mild interest in the pictures and statues, and museums and colleges, though we go on buying the one and supporting the other, because we think that somehow it is right for us to do it. I’m afraid we are men more of action than of art, literature, and the like. Tremlidge is, I know. He wants facts, accomplished results. When he gives out his money he wants to see the concrete, substantial return — and I’m not sure that I am not of the same way of thinking.
“Well, with this and with that, and after
talking it all over a dozen times — twenty times — we came to the conclusion that what we would most like to aid financially would be a successful attempt by an American-built ship, manned by American seamen, led by an American commander, to reach the North Pole. We came to be very enthusiastic about our idea; but we want it American from start to finish. We will start the subscription, and want to head the list with our checks; but we want every bolt in that ship forged in American foundries from metal dug out of American soil. We want every plank in her hull shaped from American trees, every sail of her woven by American looms, every man of her born of American parents, and we want it this way because we believe in American manufactures, because we believe in American shipbuilding, because we believe in American sailmakers, and because we believe in the intelligence and pluck and endurance and courage of the American sailor.
“Well,” Campbell continued, changing his position and speaking in a quieter voice, “we did not say much to anybody, and, in fact, we never really planned any expedition at all. We merely talked about its practical nature and the desirability of having it distinctively American. This was all last summer. What we wanted to do was to make the scheme a popular one. It would not be hard to raise a hundred thousand dollars from among a dozen or so men whom we both know, and we found that we could count upon the financial support of Mr. Garlock’s society. That was all very well, but we wanted the people to back this enterprise. We would rather get a thousand five-dollar subscriptions than five of a thousand dollars each. When our ship went out we wanted her commander to feel, not that there were merely a few millionaires, who had paid for his equipment and his vessel, behind him, but that he had seventy millions of people, a whole nation, at his back.
“So Tremlidge went to work and telegraphed instructions to the Washington correspondents of his paper to sound quietly the temper of as many Congressmen as possible in the matter of making an appropriation toward such an expedition. It was not so much the money we wanted as the sanction of the United States. Anything that has to do with the Navy is popular just at present. We had got a Congressman to introduce and father an appropriation bill, and we could count upon the support of enough members of both houses to put it through. We wanted Congress to appropriate twenty thousand dollars. We hoped to raise another ten thousand dollars by popular subscription. Mr. Garlock could assure us two thousand dollars; Tremlidge would contribute twenty thousand dollars in the name of the Times, and I pledged myself to ten thousand dollars, and promised to build the ship’s engines and fittings. We kept our intentions to ourselves, as Tremlidge did not want the other papers to get hold of the story before the Times printed it. But we continued to lay our wires at Washington. Everything was going as smooth as oil; we seemed sure of the success of our appropriation bill, and it was even to be introduced next week, when the news came of the collapse of the English expedition — the Duane-Parsons affair.