They were so crowded in, Tyson could scarcely move his arms sufficiently to handle the yoke ropes for the sail without knocking into someone. The children were very frightened; the younger ones were beyond comforting, crying without cessation.
Tyson could not leave the tiller, even to eat, so Hannah fed him hunks of raw bear meat. It took them all day to go just twenty miles, and throughout the trip there was much complaining from the seamen, who feared the boat would sink in heavy seas, while Joe and Hans stayed busy bailing with old meat tins.
They were finally forced to overnight on the first piece of solid ice they could find. Spreading out the skins, they set up the tent and ate small portions of dry bread and pemmican. Hans and his family used the boat as sleeping quarters, and the rest stretched out in the tent or on the open ice.
The next morning, April 2, they started again, still trying to push to the west. The wind and snow squalls were against them, blowing from the quarter to which they were steering, and they made little progress, mostly in the direction of south-southwest.
They had several narrow escapes with loose ice before they found a piece on which to land safely. By this time the boat was fast making water. When emptied out on shore, a puncture was found in the hull. They patched her up as best they could the next morning. They also fitted up washboards of canvas to try to keep the water from dashing over the sides.
They started off again, heading west.
After two more days of struggling against unfavorable winds and currents, they at last regained the main ice pack. The piece of ice on which they landed was so heavy and appeared to be so compact that they considered themselves out of immediate danger, although Tyson knew no ice was to be trusted at that time of year. The struggle to reach the pack had been severe and fatiguing; everyone was happy to stop and rest.
Joe started building an igloo to provide shelter in the event of a sudden storm.
The following day, with a gale blowing from the northwest, two pieces broke off from their floe early in the morning. They hauled their things farther back to the center. Soon after, another piece of ice broke off, carrying Joe’s igloo with it. The snapping and cracking of the ice had given warning so that those inside the hut had time to escape. Undeterred, Joe speedily went about building another.
There was no telling where or when the ice would split next.
April 6. Blowing a gale, very severe, from the northwest. We are still on the same piece of ice, for the reason that we can not get off-—the sea is too rough. We are at the mercy of the elements. Joe lost another hut today. The ice, with a great roar, split across the floe, cutting Joe’s latest hut right in two. We have such a small foothold. We have put our things in the boat, and are standing by.
April 7. Wind still blowing a gale, with a fearful sea running. At six o’clock this morning, while we were getting a morsel of food, the ice split right under our tent! We were just able to scramble out, but our breakfast went down into the sea. We very nearly lost our boat—and that would be equivalent to losing ourselves.
At midnight the next night, the ice broke between the tent and boat, which had been so close that there was not space to pass between them. The boat and tent separated; on the piece of ice with the boat also went the kayak and Frederick Meyer, who had been lying down nearby.
The main party stood helpless as the boats and a stricken Meyer drifted away.
The weather, as usual, was blowing, snowing, and very cold, with a heavy sea running. All around them the ice was breaking, crushing, and overlapping.
Meyer could manage neither the boat nor the kayak alone. The boat was too heavy for one man, and the kayak of no use to anyone unaccustomed to maneuvering it; he would have capsized in an instant. He cast the kayak adrift, hoping it would come to the others, and that Joe or Hans could get it and come for him.
Unfortunately, the kayak drifted to the leeward, away from the main party.
“Oh, my God, boys, we are all goners!” shouted one of the Germans.
The seamen openly cursed Tyson, blaming him for their predicament.
With minimal discussion, and fully understanding what must be done, Joe and Hans took their paddles and ice spears and set out, springing from one piece of ice to another. It was a brave act; the Eskimo hunters could easily become marooned on the drifting ice and never be seen again. Without a boat, however, the rest of the party would not be much better off.
After watching the hunters struggle for an hour, Tyson could make out in the growing darkness that they were close enough for Meyer to throw them a line, which he did. He then pulled them toward him.
When it became too dark to watch any longer, some in the main party lay down to rest and prepare for the next battle with ice and storm. The men were beside themselves with anger and frustration. Tyson, ignoring them, kept watch through the night.
When daylight arrived, they saw the boat and the three men were still about half a mile off. The Eskimos and Meyer together did not seem to possess the strength to get the boat into the water by themselves, although the hunters had corralled the kayak.
“Any volunteers to go with me to get the boat?” Tyson asked.
When no one stepped forward, he took an ice spear in hand to balance and support himself on the shifting ice cakes, and made his start. One man followed, and Tyson was surprised to see who it was: John Kruger, the sullen German seaman he had confronted more than once.
Together, they stepped and jumped from one slippery wave-washed piece of ice to the next. They would walk a few level steps, then face a piece higher or lower, so that they had to spring up or down. Sometimes the pieces were close together; then they would have a good jump to reach the next. So they continued their perilous ice dance, leaping from one patch to another until they made it to the boat.
Even the five men found their combined strength not enough to move the boat. Tyson called over for more men to help and two came, but that was still insufficient. Following more cries for help, at last all the men, except for two who were too afraid, joined them.
After a struggle they were able to get the boat and the kayak back safely to camp. En route Meyer and a seaman fell into the water and were pulled out, wet and nearly frozen. With no spare clothes to change into, they suffered mightily. Soon after arriving at camp, Meyer lost consciousness. When he came to, he announced that the toes on both his feet were frozen solid. Understanding the danger, the Eskimo women hurriedly wrapped his feet and kept his toes as warm as they could until the feeling began to come back in them.
Joe built his third igloo in as many days, and they pitched the tent alongside. They made a meal of a few bites of pemmican and bread. They set a watch to observe the movements of the ice, and everyone else lay down to rest.
April 9. During the night the wind was blowing a northeast gale. The sun shone for a few minutes—about long enough to take an observation: lat. 55 degrees, 51 mins. The sea is running very high again, and threatening to wash us off every moment. The ice is much slacker, and the water, like a hungry beast, creeps nearer. Things look very bad. We are in the hands of God; he alone knows how this night will end.
As the sun set in a golden light, an angry sea washed over the stranded party. Again, they piled everything into the boat, ready to shove off. Tyson feared they would never survive in such a sea, but if they were to be washed over or if the ice broke beneath them, they would have no choice but to launch. The women and children were moved to the boat as a precaution, for in an emergency there might not be time to collect them. The baby stayed in his mother’s hood, but the rest of the children had to be physically moved whenever it was necessary to change the position of the boat on the shifting ice, as it often was.
As the heavy sea washed over them continuously, there was not a dry place to stand upon, nor a piece of freshwater ice to drink. The sea had swept over everything, filling all the little depressions where they could usually find freshwater ice. As a consequence, they all suffered badly from thirst.
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br /> By midnight, the storm had quieted down. With the ice well closed around them, they decided to set up the tent once more and try to get some rest.
The next day was calm and cloudy. Although they could not see land, they knew they could not be far from shore. They had seen a fox, some crows, and other land birds. The ice was closed around them—mostiy solid ice in every direction, but they could neither travel over it nor use the boat. Their fate was not in their own hands. All they could do was wait for the ice pack to open up. They had two large bergs almost on top of them, but fortunately, there was no portion of the overhanging bergs that might fall and crush them. They saw some seals but could not get them. They were very hungry and likely to remain so.
Joe, who had been watching the men carefully, again confessed his fear to Tyson. The children would be eaten first, said Joe, who was convinced that the German seamen would not starve as long as there was an Eskimo child about.
Tyson, who was wearing the pistol at his side around the clock, impressed upon Joe and Hans the importance of keeping their rifles loaded and handy. He also took into his confidence the two non-German crew members: Herron, the English steward, and Jackson, the mulatto cook. Herron had already caught Kruger stealing food more than once. The two men, who were also armed, were equally horrified by the threat. Herron and Jackson, who had not always gotten along, assured Tyson they would together keep watch on the Germans and do what was necessary to protect the children.
April 13. Last night, as I sat solitary, thinking over our desperate situation, the northern lights appeared in great splendor. I watched while they lasted, and there seemed to be something like the promise accompanying the first rainbow in their brilliant flashes. The auroras seem to me always like a sudden flashing out of the Divinity; a sort of reminder that God has not left us … This has thrown a ray of hope over our otherwise desolate outlook.
April 14. Wind light, from the north. The pack still closed. No chance of shifting our position for a better one yet. See seals almost every day, but can not get them. We can neither go through the ice nor over it in its present condition. The weather is fine and the sea calm, or rather, I should say, the ice is calm, for I see no water anywhere. Our small piece of ice is wearing away very fast, and our provisions nearly finished. Things look very dark, starvation very near. Poor Meyer looks wretchedly; the loss of food tells on him worse than on the rest. He looks very weak. I have much sympathy for him, notwithstanding the trouble he has caused me. I trust in God to bring us all through. It does not seem possible that we should have been preserved through so many perils, and such long-continued suffering, only to perish at last.
April 15. Some of the men have dangerous looks; this hunger is disturbing their brains. I can not but fear that they contemplate crime. After what we have gone through, I hope this company may be preserved from any fatal wrong. We can and we must bear what God sends without crime. This party must not disgrace humanity by cannibalism.
April 16. One more day got over without a catastrophe. The ice is still the same. Some of the men’s heads and faces are much swollen, but from what cause I can not discover. I know scurvy when I see it, and it is not that. We keep an hour-watch now through the night. The men are too weak to keep up long. Someone has been at the pemmican. This is not the first time. I know the men; there are three of them. They have been the three principal pilferers of the party. We have but a few days’ provisions left. The idea that cannibalism can be contemplated by any human being troubles me very much.
At the break of day on April 18, the sight of land greeted them, on a bearing to the southwest. They saw it plainly in the early morning, then lost sight of it when a fog bank rolled in. It was as if God had raised the curtain of mist, Tyson thought, showing them the promised land to keep them from despair.
Later that morning Joe spied a small hole of water about half a mile off. He took his gun and ventured across the loose ice. Small, light, and nimble, he stepped cautiously but surely on surfaces that other men would have fallen through. He had no sooner reached the spot when everyone heard the welcome report of his rifle. He had bagged a nice-sized seal. It will save us from starving, Tyson wrote. Perhaps worse.
The cleaned carcass was carefully divided into eighteen parts in which nothing but the gall was rejected. Everyone was called in succession to step forward and receive his or her portion of meat, blubber, and skin. A general contribution was made of blubber and rags for a fire—they no longer had the oil lamps—over which soup was prepared, and then eaten with great relish.
Meyer, tall and very thin, wore on his hands a monstrous pair of deerskin gloves, much too large for him. He looked quite pitiable, though almost grotesquely amusing, trying to gather up some bones, already abandoned, to pick at again for a scrap of meat. The gloves were so large, and his hands so cold, he could not feel when he had got hold of anything, and as he would raise himself up, almost toppling over with weakness, he found time and again that he had grasped nothing.
Observing this from nearby, Tyson realized that had the French artist Gustave Dore, known for conveying dramatic action in mysterious, gloomy settings, wanted a model subject to stand for Famine in a suitable setting, he might have drawn the cadaverous Meyer hovering over the small pile of frozen bones.
At 9:00 P.M. on April 20, while some of the men were resting in the tent and the women and children in the boat, there was an alarming outcry from the watch. At the same instant a huge wave swept across the ice, carrying away everything that was loose.
Immediately, they began shipping one wave after another. Finally, a tremendous crashing wave swept away the tent, skins, and most of the bed clothing; only a few things were saved. Had the women and children not already been in the boat, the little ones would certainly have been swept off to watery graves.
All they could do now, with everything else lost, was to try to save the boat.
Tyson called all hands to man the boat in a new fashion—namely, to hold on to it to prevent it being washed away. Fortunately, they had preserved the boat warp, still attached to the bow, and had also another strong line made out of thick strips of ugyuk skin. With these they secured the boat as well as they could to projecting vertical points of ice. Having no grapnels or ice anchors, these fastenings were frequendy unloosed and broken, and could not be trusted. All the men were needed to hold down the boat, and they had to brace themselves and hold on with all the strength they had.
As soon as it was possible, Tyson directed the men to drag the boat over to that edge of the ice where the seas were striking first, for he knew that if she remained toward the farther edge, the gathered momentum of the waves as they rushed over the ice would more than master them, and the boat would go. The precaution proved to be wise; as it was, they were nearly carried off—boat and all—many times during the dreadful night. The heaviest seas came at intervals of fifteen or twenty minutes, and between these, others struck that would have been thought very powerful if worse had not soon followed.
Every once in a while one of the tremendous waves would lift the boat up bodily and the entire party with it, and carry everything forward on the ice almost to the extreme opposite edge. Several times the boat got partly over, and was hauled back only by the superhuman strength of desperate men fighting for their lives. The sea was also full of loose ice, rolling about in blocks of all shapes and sizes. With almost every wave would come an avalanche of ice, striking legs and arms and knocking the men off their feet as if they were so many pins in a bowling alley. Some of these blocks were only a foot or two square; others were as large as a chest of drawers.
Oftentimes, after a wave had spent its strength, they would find themselves near the farthest edge, and sometimes precariously on the edge. They then had to push, pull, and drag the boat back to its former position, and stand ready, bracing themselves for the next assault and the battery of loose ice they knew would accompany it. And so the men fought, hour after hour, the sea as strong as ever, themselves weakening
from fatigue. In the middle of the night, the two Eskimo women had to leave the children and get out of the boat to help hold it down.
From the first Meyer did not appear to have any strength to assist in holding back the boat, but by clinging desperately to it he at least kept himself from being washed away. This was a time, Tyson saw, when all did their best, for they knew their lives depended on the preservation of the boat.
This was their greatest fight for life they had yet faced.
For twelve hours there was scarcely a sound uttered, save for the crying of the children and Tyson’s orders to “hold on,” “bear down,” “put on all your weight,” and the responsive “aye, aye, sir,” which for once came readily from the men, frightened to the depths of their souls and in need of strong leadership.
At last came daylight, which found the party exhausted and half-drowned.
Tyson spotted a piece of ice riding quite easy, near to them, and he made up his mind that they must reach it. The sea was fearfully rough, and a few of the men hesitated, voicing concern that the boat could not possibly make it in such a heavy sea.
“The ice we are on is even more unsafe!” Tyson yelled. “Launch away!”
And away they went, after the women and children were snugly stowed. The rest succeeded in getting into the boat safely except for the cook, who went overboard but managed to cling to the gunwale until Tyson pulled him back in.
They succeeded in reaching the piece of ice, where they hauled up the boat and distributed the last remaining morsels of food. Having no dry clothes, when the sun came out briefly they took off all they could spare and laid them out on the ice. Everyone was black and blue with bruises received during the night from all the blows and falls. While the sun showed itself, Tyson took an observation: latitude 53 degrees, 57 minutes.
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