by Joan Druett
Antarctic Ocean, February 3, 1839
When the crew of the sealer Betsey of Stonington, Connecticut, met their close brush with death, the schooner was steering northeast, heading home after a short but very profitable season far south of Cape Horn.
Just before noon it began to snow hard, but the strong wind was both favorable and constant, and the old schooner was cutting through the water like a racer, so the mate, who was in charge of the deck, didn’t feel unduly alarmed. When he called out to a seaman , however, something very strange happened, so he belatedly sent for the captain.
When Captain Noyes came up from the warm fug of the cabin, he stopped short, partly because he couldn’t see his hand in front of his face, and partly because the first breath of fresh air cut like a knife. In twelve years of sailing the Antarctic south he had never felt attacked by the cold like this. He could hear the men on watch stamping their numb feet and flapping their arms about their chests. The deckboards were hidden beneath a thick, slippery blanket, while more snow swept down on them in undulating sheets. It was as if the Betsey was racing from nowhere to nowhere, trapped in a world of swirling white. God, Noyes thought, he should have been called up long before, and he silently cursed the mate for his idiotic bullheadedness.
Stumbling and sliding in the blinding murk, he finally found the offender. “How long has it been so thick, Mr. Jeffrey?”
“Since before noon,” said the mate.
“So what made you finally decide it might be a good idea to send for me?”
Mr. Jeffrey winced at the sarcasm. “It’s just that it seemed so strange, sir.”
“Strange? What in hell are you babbling about?”
“An echo came back when I shouted out for a hand to heave the log — like there’s a nearby ship, or something.”
“Echo? What the devil?” Then Noyes abruptly realized the full horror of their situation. “Ice!” he cried, and an echo instantly sounded, “Ice, ice, ice.”
He shouted, “There’s a bloody berg somewhere near!” Desperate to stop the schooner in her headlong course, he screamed out orders — too late. The snow abruptly thinned, revealing a tall ice island on the starboard bow. At the same instant, the sails sagged and flopped. The berg had stolen their wind, and the schooner was moving only by her own momentum.
Seventy-foot cliffs reared over them, blotting out the sky. The Betsey surged slowly through the glutinous, near-frozen water, parallel to the shore, just a dozen yards from foaming reefs. The decks were utterly silent, every seaman rigidly still as the schooner glided stealthily on. Noyes was holding his breath, conscious of the heavy thud of his heart in his ears. Then, with a jolt of primitive horror, he stared up into the eyes of a corpse.
The dead man was standing on a high ledge, his back to the cliff. Noyes could see him in detail. It was obvious that the man had been bludgeoned to death. Thick gouts of blood lay frozen on his cheeks and forehead, and clotted his thick, black beard. Yet his expression was so alive with savagery that Noyes felt superstitiously convinced he would become animated, if thawed. Then the scouring of exposed flesh by wind and weather registered. The dead man had been frozen to the cliff for months, if not years.
The Betsey reached the extremity of the berg, and the wind seized her sails again. Away she raced towards a clear horizon, leaving the corpse far behind.
One
E ight days later, as the Betsey was breasting the first billows of the icy south Atlantic, the lookout raised a sail.
The wind, most unusually, was ahead, so that Noyes was forced to beat his way east, while ships steering for the Pacific were making an easy passage. As a result, by the time the little white blot of canvas on the horizon had divided into three, the Betsey had made very little headway. It was as if she were waiting for the oncoming ships.
Another hour, and the trio could be seen from deck — a smart brig and two big ships, making a grand show with their clouds of fully set sail — and the lookout aloft could see the great ensigns billowing over their sterns.
“United States Navy,” he hollered.
“Good God,” cried Noyes, leaping aloft with his spyglass. “It must be the exploring expedition!”
He couldn’t believe it. The United States Surveying and Exploring Expedition had been anticipated for the past ten years, starting out as a grand scheme that was supposed to establish the country’s scientific reputation, but which had been turned into a laughing-stock by delays and political shenanigans. For a long time it had looked as if the project would never get underway, but last September, when the Betsey had spoken an Atlantic whaler, the captain had told Noyes that the fleet had sailed from Norfolk, Virginia, in August, and was finally on its way to chart the Pacific and render it safe for American commerce. So why the hell hadn’t the ships arrived in the Pacific already? In the intervening six months they could have crossed the whole damn ocean — they should be in Australia!
Captain Noyes had no intention of trying to learn the answer. The wind might be ahead, but the weather was fairer than could be expected, and he had his holds packed with furs that he was anxious to get onto the New York market. Even more crucially, he didn’t want anyone to know where he’d been. After forging further south than any man had sailed for years, the Betsey had blundered over an icy islet crammed with seal-life, one of the very few rookeries that had not been discovered already, and William Noyes was determined to keep the secret to himself.
Accordingly, he ordered a change in course, to give the fleet a wide berth. But, instead of respecting his desire for privacy, the brig broke away from the other two, and tacked to intercept. Again, Noyes ordered the schooner to be put about. However the brig, a dashing little craft with a piratical look about her, was much swifter than the ponderous Betsey, easily countering every evasive maneuver.
Then she was alongside. An order to heave-to for boarding was bellowed over the water, Captain Noyes grumbled out instructions, and the Betsey doused canvas. He and the sixteen men of his crew lined the rail, watching glumly as the brig stilled with a flourish, and sent over a boat.
“Betsey ahoy,” said the officer in charge, and stepped on board without waiting for an invitation. He was a tall, well-groomed young man with fluffy blond sideburns, splendidly garbed in a blue uniform with a single gold epaulette — quite a contrast to Noyes who, like his men, was wearing a smelly sealskin suit.
“Lieutenant George Rochester, commanding U.S. brig Swallow,” the visitor affably said, and held out his hand.
That was something else Noyes had heard — that the exploring expedition was commanded by passed midshipmen and mere lieutenants. Hiding his opinion of this, he introduced himself in the usual manner, giving his name, trade, and last port.
“And you’re bound for the States? Excellent — just as we figured,” Rochester said heartily when Noyes nodded. “Every manjack who can write is scribbling letters, and we’d be obliged if you’d carry ’em home for us.”
So he was to be the mailman for an exploring expedition, Noyes thought with irritation. When he looked over the water he saw that the two large ships had come up with the Swallow and were laying to, looking like great fragile birds with the light gleaming on their sails. If he had been the commodore, they would have been making all the speed they could while the weather held, instead of dallying in this treacherous place.
Hiding that opinion, too, he grunted, “Aye, I’ll wait for you to bring them on board — unless the weather changes.”
“Much obliged.” Then Rochester cocked his head to one side, and went on, to Noyes’s alarm, “Am I right in saying the sealing season ain’t over yet?”
The sealing captain warily nodded.
“And you’re homeward bound already? You’ve been lucky.”
Noyes grudgingly confirmed that they had indeed been fortunate.
“We’re heading for Hoste Island, where the other four vessels are waiting at Orange Harbour, and will carry out scientific observations there,”
Rochester confided. “Then we’ll sail into deep southern latitudes, to discover Antarctica. What d’you reckon about that, sir?”
Noyes was far too astonished to answer. It was February 1839, and the brief summer was almost over. It was a crazy time to sail far south.
“So I’d be obliged if you’d accompany me to the flagship Vincennes — with your logbook, to make an official report,” Rochester went on. “Captain Wilkes will want to record your route, and note details of the conditions.”
Noyes winced, because this was exactly what he’d dreaded. Then inspiration struck. “What a relief!” he cried.
He saw Rochester blink, no doubt remembering how the Betsey had done her utmost to avoid him, and went on with an inappropriate grin, “On account of we have a murder to report.”
Rochester listened with deep attention to the story of the near miss and the sighting of the corpse. “You’re a lucky man indeed,” he marveled. “Quite apart from the cadaver, that iceberg is a hazard for shipping. We should report it at once!”
“I quite agree,” said Noyes, and jumped into the boat before Rochester had time to remember the logbook.
An order was given, and the oarsmen shoved away from the side of the Betsey — but headed for the smaller of the two big ships. Rochester explained, “Murder being part of the business in hand, we’ll drop by the Peacock first, to pick